Jurassic Park: Edge of Chaos

This is my sequel to The Lost World. Something has gone wrong!

Part 1: Decisions

Café
Lewis Dodgson sat in a ragged old booth in the Marie Callender's Café at 9 P.M., and the streetlights were just lighting up. Almost every minute Dodgson looked at his watch and stared out of the fogged up window.
Where is he? He was supposed to be here almost fifthteen minutes ago. If he doesn't show up soon, the deal is off, Dodgson thought to himself.
Lewis Dodgson was forty-nine years old, bland-faced, and almost completely bald. Dodgson was one of the most ruthless and aggressive geneticists of his kind. He had ran the reverse –engineering section at Biosyn, which examined products and determined how they were made. But in practice, that involved a great deal of industrial espionage.
Dodgson heard someone coming into the café. He looked up to see a man, in his late twenties, with buzz cut brown hair, wearing blue jeans with a black long sleeve shirt, and a black jacket. The man walked over to the booth that Dodgson was sitting, and sat down across from him.
" Got the money?" said the man.
" Got what I asked for?" said Dodgson.
" Yep, the user name and password. Got it right here in my pocket. But what I'm asking is do you have all the money?"
" Yes. Fifty-thousand when you give it to me and another fifty thousand if the plan works." Dodgson grabbed the briefcase sitting by the booth and sat it on the table. He put in the password and unlocked the case. He turned it around for the man to see. " Fifty-thousand all in here. Give the info to me and it's yours."
"Here", and the man dug into his pocket to find a piece of paper that had been ripped off of something. He opened it up to have a name and a row with letters and numbers. " This is what you've been looking for. This is the user name and the password or access code. I also included the access number. And with this number, it will erase the key check on what has happened. So it'll be like it never happened. It's a trap door. Made it myself. I hope the guy you picked won't freak out when he finds out what happens."
" Don't worry. He's not like the last guy I asked for last time I tried to do this. That guy was a really big idiot. Not to mention he was a pig and I found out he had lost his way through the park and had gotten eaten by one of the animals."
" Gotten eaten by one of the animals? What kind? A lot of animals don't eat people in zoos. They just injure them. But I guess that guy was stupid to not even know his way around a zoo."
" The point is, I'm not gonna make the same mistake I made the first time. And I'm sure that this will work. If this info is true and not a trap where that guy gets busted…"
"I guarantee it. It's a trap door where he's the pink panther. Nobody will even notice anything. Only when they find out a few systems are down. Oh by the way. I forgot to mention something. It'll also shut down all security, except for fences. I figured that if there's fences for animals, you don't wanna get eaten by one of those. But when he tries to activate the fences so they open, he uses his card and he can still open the fences without letting anyone know he's in. Is that okay?"
" Perfect. I'll be hearing from you soon. And I believe we're going to do a lot of business with each other."
" Dodgson, remember, the rest of the money."
" I'll remember. You'll get the money when the plan works out and our man isn't exploited. And don't say my name. Who knows? Maybe there's an InGen guy in here right now. You don't want him to find out what we're doing here. If they found out, then our plan would be ruined and then we'd be sued. Not to mention that you wouldn't get the rest of the total one-hundred-thousand dollars.
" Okay, bye Lew. Oh, and I guarantee it. It'll all go as planned.
" It better."

Phone Call
Alan Grant kneeled in the shade of the tarp tent in Snakewater, Minnesota; chiseling in the red dirt of once was a sea known to dinosaurs. To his right and left were his students. Kids who had almost no care in the world. Kids who would do outrageous things, and would not even care. But straight ahead of him was a kid who was willing to achieve for something that meant a lot to her. A kid who would work on her hands and knees to achieve her dreams. Grant's niece, Sophia Grant.
Sophia Grant was a thirteen-year-old who had long brown hair tied into a braid, and she wore a gray tank top and khaki shorts. She came from a suburb of Boston Massachusetts where her father, Peter Grant, was a physicist and her mother, Linda Grant, a secretary at a nearby office building. When she turned 12, her parents had a divorce, and didn't know who would take Sophia. So she was shipped off to the middle of Montana to live with her uncle and work on his findings.
Alan Grant on the other hand, was a thin man of fifty, with brown hair, and a cotton long sleeve shirt, jeans, his Australian slouched hat, and his lucky red bandana. He was a professor of paleontology at the University of Denver. He was an outdoors man, and didn't like to be a tea cup lecturer, so he moved his work up to Montana where he worked on an excavation on digging up fossils of velociraptors and other dinosaurs that died out around there.
Right now, he was excavating a large female raptor that was bigger than the tent itself. Grant had never seen such a big animal. Raptors were usually 6 feet tall and 8 feet across. But this raptor was 8 feet tall and 10 feet across. To him, it looked like a Utahraptor. Everything was bigger than it was supposed to be.
Grant looked up to the monitor that had an X-ray of the skeleton.
This isn't a velociraptor, he thought to himself, its all wrong. The whole body is bigger. The torso is wider, tail longer, the legs are thicker, the neck too long, and not to mention the snout of it is awfully dull. Not pointed like the velociraptor. And also, the claws are way bigger. About the size of my hand.
Grant kept digging around the creature with the small pick and artist's camel brush.
" Hey Uncle Grant, I think I found something," said Sophia as she climbed up off of the ground. She dusted her pants, which were now a light brown instead of tan. She walked over to him with what looked like a deformed stick. " I think it's a claw, but it looks like it came from a different dino. Cause the claw is smaller than the others."
" Let me get a good look at it"
Sophia walked over to Grant and handed him the fossil.
" Yes, you're right. It isn't from this animal. I predict this dinosaur might have died from an injury or maybe it died of some other cause, and the scavengers got to it. But Procompsognathis or Compies had smaller claws. Way smaller claws. About the size of my thumb." Grant stuck his hand out and pointed toward his thumb.
" Yea, or maybe it was killed in a fight. You know, we've found many fossils that were missing parts. Probably because of fights."
" But usually, raptors and scavengers eat the bones also. So who knows? Maybe we're right, or maybe we're wrong."
" Yea, I guess you're right."
" Okay, take this and go give it a bath. And then do some research on it for me, like see if there are any remains of living or dead animal cells."
" Okay Grant." And with the claw, Sophia walked out of the shaded tent and walked over to the old trailer where they did their research. All around the excavation site were tipis where the students, Grant, and her slept.
In the blazing heat, her head sweated, making her braid wet, and her bangs dripping water on to her hot face. She walked to the trailer and opened the trailer door to steps that entered into an air-conditioned room. Nearby, she could hear the portable generator, which gave power to the trailer.
"Thank God for electricity," Sophia said to herself as she shut the trailer door.
Inside was a couch, the booth was taken out for more room, and a little kitchen. On the counters were beakers, syringes, gloves, plastic trays with clear liquid, safety goggles, and bags with bones all individually wrapped. She walked over to the counter with a light hanging over. She took a pair of gloves from a little box, and slipped them over her hands. The gloves went clear up to her elbows. She then took the safety goggles and slipped them over her eyes. Over to the right of her were the plastic trays, and she grabbed one and put it right in front of her. Then she took a bottle with liquid acid and poured it into the tray. She was about to take the tweezers, clamp the claw and set it into the acid when the phone rang. Sophia took her gloves off and set them on the counter. She walked over to the trailer door, and beside the door was the hanging phone. She picked up the phone and answered it.
" Hello, University of Denver Digging excavation, how can I help you?" said Sophia.
" Yes, may I speak to a Dr. Alan Grant?" said the man.
" I'm sorry, he's busy with an excavation. Can I give him a message?"
" Yes, can you tell him that I. M. called about J. P. and that J. H. has done it again? He'll talk to me if you say that."
" Okay, but if you make him P. O., its not my fault. Hold on a minute," and Sophia opened up the trailer door and yelled.
" Uncle Grant? You have a phone call."
" Sophie, I'm busy right now," said Grant as he held up the leg of the dinosaur. " Tell him to give out his name and phone number, and tell him I'll call him back."
" But Grant, he says that I. M. called about J. P. and that J. H. did it again. And he said that you would talk to him."
Grant looked at Sophia slowly and gave a what-did-you-say look.
" All right. Hold on. I'm coming." And Grant laid down the bone, and walked out of the shade of the tent. He walked over to the trailer, and grabbed the phone from Sophia.
" Hello, this is Dr. Grant, what do you have to say since you disrupted me from my work?"
" Alan, its Ian. You won't believe this, but Hammond has done it again." To Sophia, Grant looked stunned, and Grant dropped the phone, and fell to the steps of the trailer.
" Grant, are you okay?" said Sophia.
" Yea, I'm fine, but I can't believe that son of a buck did it again."

Making Conversation

Over the phone, Grant could hear Ian Malcolm talking.
" Grant, are you there?' said Malcolm.
Grant reached for the phone, which was lying in the dirt. He picked up the phone and rubbed it against his shirt. Now he had tan dust on the end of his shirt. He now put the phone back to his ear and started talking.
" Ian, how could you? You should have stopped him. He's gonna make another one of those Malcolm Effects you always talk about. And he's gonna probably kill himself this time…"
" Alan, slow down. First of all, this isn't my fault. And second, I didn't know about it 'till today. And they just left San Diego to come to you. And I wanted you to be prepared to say no. I said no, but I'm able to change my mind if Ellie says so. What does she think?"
"Ian, she's in Chicago, remember? She married a physician and had two children."
" Oh, that's right. Are you alone?"
" No, my niece is here. Hold on."
" Sophie, can I talk privately to Mr. Malcolm please? You can do the analysis later. Go back to the tent and keep chiseling."
" Okay Uncle Grant," and Sophia walked back into the heat to the tent where the rest of the students were chiseling with dental picks.
" Okay, we're alone. Now give me the info."
" Alan, do you have a office or a secret place?"
" Yes, why?"
" I think you should better go to that place so no one eavesdrops on us."

* * *


Grant was sitting in his small office where light came from a small window. On his desk were a laptop, picture frames of Ellie and Sophia, and papers strung all over the desk. On the walls were pictures of dinosaurs that he had sketched for his book that he had published in 1989. And
" Okay, I'm in the office. Now tell me what is going on?"
" Well, what I've told you was that Dr. John Hammond has made another park. And you know what I'm talking about?"
" Yes, I know."
" Well, I was in my office in Berkeley and I got a phone call by a Mr. Theodore Savage. He's the new head of public relations for the park. He was asking me many things. Like was I busy this weekend, and did I have any children, and was I married, and medical terms, then he told me did I have any relations with Hammond, which I said yes. Then he asked questions like how did I know him, and what had I done with him. Oh, it was like an hour-long conversation. Not to mention I think he ranked up my phone bill a few tens. Then he told me the dirt.
" He told me since the park was destroyed the first time, they were bankrupt. But when they had found out about that the dinosaurs were still alive, Hammond went bisserk. He had contractors making up new plans. Ordering new supplies, not to mention the new five hundred-megahertz computers, which he had customized to run the whole park. He also has not three, but four generators. Two generate the whole park. Cause there is more gadgets than a computer has in that park. The feeders, the gates, the computers, the kitchens, the lodge, lights, everything. This time, they have two generators so if one goes off, the auxiliary power comes on, and the second is running just fine, and if both generators go off, then both auxiliary power generators go on, and they try to start up the main generator automatically.
" And security was gonna be harder to get through. They have eye and finger print access. It's almost like a James Bond movie. Only you don't have the U. S. S. R. on your tail. "
" I see, and what did they do to the park to get it up and running? I mean with the dinosaurs running around the whole park, how did they get it done without getting hurt from a carnivore?"
" I heard from Savage that they had toxicated the dinosaurs so they slept for seventy-two hours. And they had put them into holding pens. And when they had found the animals, they had them spaded or neutered them. Then when it was up and running, I mean everything was running. All the rides, the lodge, everything, then they set the dinosaurs into their new homes."
" That's mad, how could they do that to a poor innocent creature?"
" I don't know, but this time, their making the same mistake as they did the last time."
" And what was that?"
" They made the park," Malcolm paused for a minute. " But do you wanna come?"
" I don't know. Let me ask someone."
" Alan, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Alan? Alan? Oh come on. "
Alan, set the receiver on his desk, and walked out of the room, he walked toward the trailer door and opened it. Outside, he could see the tipis and the tent where he could see Sophia sitting with the others digging at the raptor.
" Hey Sophie, I have a question to ask you. Would you come here please?"
" Sure Uncle Grant," said Sophia as she climbed off the ground. She walked away from the tent. She was now covered completely in dirt from head to toe. She now entered into the trailer where grant was now sitting on the couch. " What do you need?"
" Sophie, do you remember saying ' Hey Uncle Grant, how about going on vacation, and seeing some sites, instead of seeing old Montana dirt'?"
" Yea, and you got really mad. Why do you ask?"
" Well, I got a phone call from an old associate of mine, and he was wondering if we would be able to go to an resort with him. And that had reminded me of that question. So how about it? Let's go on vacation."
" Grant, are you crazy? We're in the middle of a digging excavation. And you pick this time to go on vacation?"
" Sophie, it's a business trip, and you're welcome."
" How much?"
" Probably to last us for the next two years with the spending."
" All right Grant. You're the boss."
" All right. We're going to Costa Rica."
" We are?"
" Why certainly. Where did you think we were going to go? To Antarctica?"
Grant walked back to his office, he could still hear Malcolm talking to himself. He picked up the receiver.
" Ian. We're coming."
" Who's coming with you?"
" Oh just someone."
" I was afraid of that."





To be continued. . .