I step back away from Little One, and John steps in with a tissue and starts wiping away the bit of blood and embryonic fluid of the egg sticking to her, looking at Dad who is holding the empty, almost complete egg shell in the palm of his hand, underneath the incubator's heat lamp.
'You already confirmed that they were warm blooded…' I think but shrug and let him have his fun.
"Blood temperature feels like high eighties." Dad mutters but his voice carries the hint of a question.
"Wu?" John asks questioningly and I feel that he's been a little too rough with, My Raptor baby.
"Ninety-one." Wu answers.
The robotic arm snatches the egg right out of dad's hand and puts it back in the nest where it should be.
"Homoeothermic? It holds that temperature?" Dad asks Wu in awe, and Wu nods, "incredible." Dad murmurs.
Malcolm, who is now standing beside dad, is looking at Hammond with skepticism, "But again, how do you know they're all female? Does someone go into the park and uplift the dinosaurs' skirts?" Malcolm snarkily asks.
"We control their chromosomes. It's not that difficult, all vertebrate embryos are inherently female anyway. It takes an extra hormone at the right developmental stage to create a male, and we simply deny them that." Wu says in a way that matches Malcolm's own snarkiness and arrogance.
"Your silence intrigues me." John says and I think he's talking to Malcolm, but I see that he's looking at me.
"So, I won't pretend to be even half as intelligent as you lot with your PhDs and doctorates…but…some frogs have been known to change their gender…when there is a need for it…like say for breeding because there are no males within an acceptable range, if we were to thoroughly inspect the park right now…I mean every inch of every paddock, can you one hundred percent guarantee that, we won't find clutches of viable fertilized eggs? Or that these animals also haven't had a percentage of their population convert their sex to male, to further the one drive all…life forms on this planet share…the one to procreate?" I ask and am rewarded with Henry Wu looking like he just ate a really sour lemon.
"I for one agree with the kid John, the kind of control you're attempting is not possible. If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained, life breaks free, it expands to new territories, it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even.. dangerously, but and...well, there it is."
Ellie listens to Malcolm, and then shoots me an impressed look.
"Watch her head, support her head." Says and Dad ignoring the others, picks up the baby dinosaur, and
holds it on the palm of his hand, under the incubator's heat light.
"Be gentle dad, she's a new born baby." I grunt and the man twitches, turns nods to me, as he very gently,
spreads the tiny animal out on the palm of his hand and delicately runs
his finger over its tail, counting the vertebrae, a look of puzzled recognition crosses his face.
"I can understand an uneducated child implying that a group of animals composed entirely of females will breed?"
"Hold on I might not be college educated, but I have traveled to almost every conceivable place on this planet with life. I have learned from men and women vastly more intelligent than myself, and more experienced than you, Wu. It has been verified that a species you have used in resurrecting these formerly extinct animals, frogs and many other species on this planet can and will change genders for procreation when there is a lack of the gender necessary to continue their species."
"My son knows his stuff, why he wants to be a simple tradesman is something I'll never understand, but it's his choice what he wants to be." Dad inputs, drawing a surprised look from me.
"I for one one hundred percent agree with Alec, life…finds a way."
"I agree with that…and Alec is very intelligent even if he doesn't feel that he is." Ellie says and I like that, I don't however like the way she's walking over to Malcolm, or the way that they're smiling at each other way too warmly.
"You can't control anything, that much," Ellie gets closer to Malcolm, her voice talking on a flirty quality to it, "You can talk. I don't know how to say it, you're just articulate…and you say everything that I think, that I feel…It's…that….life will always find a way." Ellie flutters her eyes looking like she has a school girl crush on her favorite teacher.
'Oh my god you fucking slut! I know it's not technically cheating but looking and smiling like that at a man like Ian Malcolm feels like you're cheating on my dad, hoe!'
"That's right, it will break through."
"I get, ah!" Ellie almost moans.
'Jesus Christ woman!'
"I know, it's very exciting." Malcolm says sleazily.
"And scary…" The way Ellie says those two little words makes it seem like she's looking for a big strong man to hold her.
"And scary." I can hear Malcolm's lascivious smirking.
"When people try to control things that it's out of their power…" Ellie murmurs huskily.
"It's anti-nature…"
"Actually it's human nature…to control what it shouldn't, you know…every bloody war or devious act in human history has been intrinsically connected to controlling life…and ideals…" Ellie seems to snap out of her flirtatious state with Malcolm but seeing her true colors, my liking of the woman has dropped like a stone from a skyscraper,
"R-right…Anti-nature…" Ellie mumbles, Dad of course doesn't notice, as he's still obsessed with Little One, measuring and weighing her on a nearby lab bench, he stops, a strange look on his face…He knows what Little One is.
Malcolm looks at me like I just violated some sort of code, 'Maybe Ian should have an unfortunate accident, Bad Alec, don't make his many kids grow up without a moderately wealthy if absent father, in their lives.'
"But it can't be…" I hear dad mumble, his voice filled with dread as the answer he already knows, but asks anyways, "What species is this?"
'That's right Daddy-O, my adorable Little One is a Velociraptor.'
"Uh…it's a Velociraptor." Wu says it in such a way that it's like he's saying you're a paleontologist and you don't know what it is.
Dad turns to look at me then Ellie and Dad turn to each other slowly stare at each other, then look at Hammond, in a mix of astonished trepidation.
"You bred raptors?" Dad asks as he walks up to Hammond clasps his hands on the man's shoulders, "Take me to them, take me to the Raptors." The sheer raw need and desire in Dad's voice is off-putting but I want to see the Raptors too.
Hammond let's out a startled laugh, "O-Okay, it's on the tour for later Dr. Grant, Dr. Grant? Uh, we planned to show you the raptors later, after lunch." Hammond seems genuinely afraid of Dad right now while Ellie has a look of jealousy on her face as she gently cradles Little One in her hands and returns her to the nest.
"Where are they, where are the Raptors?!" Dad says even more passionately than before.
"Pen, three…it's the bunker looking paddock." Hammond says and Dad charges our of the lab across the compound, a fire in his eyes, ahead of everyone but me as I easily keep pace with him, even Ellie, and Malcolm, struggle to keep up with us but are in much better shape than Gennaro and Hammond who are huffing and puffing to keep up.
Hammond tries to call out to us, But
Dad and I have already reached the Velociraptor pen, which we recognize as the heavily fortified cage we saw earlier. It has San Quentin towers at both ends with a hoist cable held between the two towers, 'Huh, there was only one tour in the movie…and I think they used a hoist truck as well…wonder what other changes there are from the movies…besides who I think is Charlotte Lockwood.' Dad like a little kid stands right up against the fence, keeping us away from the pen with eyes wide, dying for a glimpse, through the thick smoky panes of glass.
'Thinking of Charlotte…should try and recover the embryos Nerdy steals…if I remember the movie correctly the embryos will stay viable for 36 hours, he also had like seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the medicine bag…if I remember right…should recover both of those things. Getting and selling the embryos to Doggson will be the hard part.'
Ellie and Malcolm catch up with us first both slightly out of breath Hammond Gennaro are next, both men look like they are on the verge of death and drenched in sweat.
"Dr. Grant, Haa-haa, as I was saying, haa, we've laid out lunch for you all before you head out into the park…" Hammond gasps in between words. He's a real sorry sight right now, "Alejandro, our gourmet chef…" Hammond continues to try and speak.
"What are they doing?" Dad asks as we watch, a giant crane lowering something large down into the overgrown jungle foliage sprouting up from inside of the pen.
"They're feeding them." I murmur my own voice both awed and saddened, as a very large long horn steer that looks disconcerted as all hell, and helplessly thrashing in its harness, flailing its legs in the air.
"Young Mr. Alec is correct the workers are feeding them, now as I have been trying to say, Alejandro is preparing a delightful meal for us. A Chilean sea bass, I believe. Shall we?"
"This is wrong, they need space to run, to hunt…keeping them like this is cruel." I grumble as I round on Hammond, the man has the decency to look cowed.
Hammond opens the perimeter fence, dad enters first and goes up to the viewing deck, with me hot on his heels, the others following us, I don't stare at the steer as it disappears into the shroud of foliage like the others.
I look for signs of the raptors, but their scales or skin blend in too well with the foliage, the line from the
crane hangs for a moment, signaling the animal has touched the ground, the frightened bleats of the animal, become even more pronounced, before a sudden silence all around seems to settle over us all, I feel my breathing slow to a stop, the more I concentrate the easier it is to see the large silhouettes moving through the vegetation.
The motionless crane line jerks suddenly, like a bobber finally getting a nibble, the steer lets out a noise of sheer terror and then there's a frenzy of movement, and the raptors communicate vocally, with each other using sharp sounds and clicks.
The line jerks every which way, the
jungle plants sway and, then there's a loud, snap the foliage is frantically moving, from some frantic activity within, there is a cacophony of pained bleating, growling, snapping of jaws, and finally just wet crunch sounds, a piece of the steer impacts the fence making energy arc off it, the smell of cooked, raw beef, blood and death cloy in my nostrils.
The raptors are loud as they communicate over their kill, and then it's quiet again.
I let out a sharp breath as a green/yellow reptilian eye meets mine, it's calculative…I can tell it's remembering me, as it scents the air, 'It probably smells, Little One's scent on me.'
'I wonder if it sees me as prey, a possible pack mate or food?'
'Yeah...food...it definitely sees me as food...'
~ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — ~
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