by David Lewman
The carnivore stalked them, backing them up against a wall. Suddenly a cascade of lava poured down through a crack in the ceiling, putting a wall of fire between them and the Baryonyx.
Claire noticed a circle of light hitting the floor. She looked at the ceiling and saw a long round shaft with a ladder leading up to a hatch portal. She jumped up and pulled at the ladder, but it wouldn’t come down.
“It’s stuck!” she shouted, looking around wildly and then pointing. “Chair!”
Franklin rushed to grab a chair in the far corner. The Baryonyx snapped at him through gaps in the wall of lava. Franklin slid the rolling chair across the floor to Claire, who clambered up onto it. From the chair’s height she was able to pull herself up. She hurried up the ladder, followed quickly by Franklin.
“We made it!” Franklin cheered. “Yeah! Go us!”
CLANK! The rusty ladder suddenly dropped down, putting Franklin close to the Baryonyx’s reach. The beast snapped at his feet as he scrambled back up the ladder.
At the top of the shaft, Claire tried to turn the hatch wheel, but it was jammed.
ROOOOAAAARR! They could feel the moist breath of the Baryonyx rushing up from below as she tried to tear her way up the shaft after them. Working together, Claire and Franklin finally wrenched the hatch open and climbed out into the sunlight. CLANK! They slammed the hatch closed, leaving the Baryonyx raging in the shaft below.
Safe from the Baryonyx, Claire and Franklin caught their breath and looked around to realize they were now standing in the middle of Gyrosphere Valley. Something else caught their eye then, a surprising sight: Owen running toward them! As he approached, Owen shouted, “I’d start running if I were you!” Suddenly, behind him, a stampede of dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes broke through the tree line! The animals were trying to escape the lava and burning forest.
Claire and Franklin turned and ran, too. Owen soon caught up with them.
“Wheatley left us to die,” Claire gasped.
“Me too,” Owen said.
“Where’s Zia?” Claire asked, breathing hard.
“They took her,” Owen said as they headed toward the ocean cliff at the base of the sloping valley. It was the only way out.
The three of them sprinted, weaving in and out of stampeding dinosaurs. Before they were trampled, they needed to find a safe spot to wait while the thundering herd passed them by. Claire spotted a Gyrosphere nestled against a fallen tree. “There!” she shouted, pointing.
“Get in!” Owen yelled over the roar. Claire and Franklin dove through the open door of the Gyrosphere. But before Owen could join them, a Carnotaurus separated from the stampede and started stalking him around the Gyrosphere. This nightmarish carnivore looked like a T. rex but with devilish horns protruding from her forehead. She lunged at Owen, slamming into the glass ball and knocking it loose.
As Owen dove out of the way, the Gyrosphere rolled downhill, its door snapping closed with Claire and Franklin trapped inside!
The Carnotaurus turned her attention back to Owen, but then—
ROOOOAAARRR! A massive head snatched the Carnotaurus in its jaws, snapped its neck, and dropped the dead carcass like a rag doll. Owen looked up in awe. It was the T. rex.
BOOOM! Another explosion from the volcano! The T. rex considered Owen for a moment—most likely as an unusual snack. Then she looked back toward the approaching lava flow and ran off toward the ocean.
Owen took off after the Gyrosphere, which was rolling faster and faster downhill with Claire and Franklin trapped inside. “Brakes! Brakes!” Franklin screamed. Claire tried pulling back on the control stick, but it broke off in her hand.
Now they were rolling so fast they started to pass some of the dinosaurs that had passed them earlier. Claire looked back and saw Owen running after them. Then he was swallowed up by a cloud of black ash.
She looked forward just in time to see the edge of the cliff! The Gyrosphere rocketed off and fell two hundred feet, as Claire and Franklin clung to each other, screaming as they hurtled toward the crashing waves below.
Life is not written on dollar bills….
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
SPLASH! The Gyrosphere plunged into the ocean. Water leaked through the door seams, starting to fill the bubble. Thick legs churned the water as dinosaurs treaded water around them like swimming elephants.
Lava hissed into the ocean. Claire and Franklin tried to open the sinking Gyrosphere’s door, but it wouldn’t budge. The water rose to their waists as they frantically pushed at the door.
A figure swam down to them—Owen! He tried pulling the door open from the outside, but it was stuck. He pulled out his revolver and tried to fire at the lock, but a drop of lava seared his arm. He dropped his gun, which sank out of sight.
He pulled at the door again, but a dinosaur’s tail knocked into him, sweeping him away. The Gyrosphere continued to fill with water. Claire and Franklin took final breaths from the small pocket of air at the top of the sphere. Then they were submerged, frantically kicking at the door.
Owen returned and pulled at the door with all his might while Claire and Franklin tried desperately to hold their breath. Just before it was too late, WHOOSH! Owen was able to slide the door to the side! Claire grabbed Owen’s outstretched hand, and Franklin followed. They swam to the surface, dodging falling globs of molten lava.
They reached the beach exhausted and collapsed onto the sand, gasping. Then Claire said, “We need to find Zia.”
“She’ll be with Blue,” Owen said. “Can you still track them?”
Franklin lifted his shattered tablet from the surf. “Not anymore.”
As Claire lay there thinking about what had happened, she grew more and more angry. They were supposed to have worked together to save the dinosaurs and take them to a sanctuary. Instead, Zia had been captured. Owen had been abandoned. And she and Franklin had been locked in the bunker to die.
“It was a lie,” Claire said. “It was all a lie!”
“Not all of it,” Owen said, looking up.
A helicopter carried a sedated Stegosaurus in a hanging cage. It landed near the dock across the bay, where a transport ship was anchored. Men were loading more unconscious dinosaurs onto the ship.
Wheatley walked among the men, barking orders. “Get all this tech on board! We don’t leave anything behind!”
He stopped by the Stegosaurus. “Hold! Don’t have one of these yet.” He opened his vest. Inside, it was filled with different sizes of pliers. He chose a pair and approached the sedated Stegosaurus.
“Hello, baby,” he said, grinning. Reaching through the bars, Wheatley pulled up the dinosaur’s lip, grabbed a tooth with his pliers, and yanked it out. “You’ll feel that when you wake up.”
He opened a bandanna and wrapped the bloody tooth with others he’d taken from the recently captured dinosaurs, like some sick collection of trophies. Then he jumped onto a passing truck as it drove up a ramp into the boat. Fires were burning through the jungle toward the dock. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he shouted.
* * *
Claire, Owen, and Franklin watched from nearby. “If they already had the dinosaurs,” Franklin asked, “why did they need us?”
“They needed the tracking system to capture Blue,” Claire said angrily. Then she spotted Zia next to a cage holding Blue. “There’s Zia!”
“We need to get on that boat,” Owen said.
Franklin didn’t like the idea of rejoining the guys who’d tried to kill them. “What? The rock is good. We’re safe on the rock.”
“It’s the boat or the lava, Franklin,” Claire said.
Franklin looked up to see the glowing, red lava beginning to spill over the side of the cliff above and said, “Yeah, boat’s good. I’m all about the boat.”
In the scramble to escape from the burning island, the workers lef
t behind one truck. Owen, Claire, and Franklin raced toward it, frantic to drive up the ramp onto the cargo ship before it left.
The wildfire reached a fuel depot. BOOOOM! The explosion knocked Franklin off his feet.
“Get us on that ship!” Owen told Claire. She got in the truck as Owen went back for Franklin.
“Franklin, you need to get up!” Owen shouted as ash and embers fell around them.
“I’m not gonna make it,” Franklin moaned.
Claire started the truck.
“Hey! HEY!” Owen insisted. “Look at me! Get up!”
Giving it everything he had, Franklin managed to rise to his feet. He and Owen ran to the truck. Owen jumped onto the back bumper and extended a hand to Franklin. As Claire gunned the engine, Franklin grabbed Owen’s hand and got pulled into the back.
On the ship, a crewman ordered, “Drop the ramp! Cut it!”
Just as the speeding truck drove into the cargo hold of the ship, the ramp dropped into the water. SPLASH!
Claire parked the truck in a line of vehicles and climbed out, looking around, afraid of being discovered. Luckily, the crew members were too busy watching the island burning. She grabbed a baseball cap and pulled it low over her eyes.
She joined Owen and Franklin at the back of the truck. They watched, horrified, as the scorched island slowly crumbled into the ocean, steam rising. Through the smoky sunlight, a Brachiosaurus gave a final roar as steam enveloped her. Owen and Claire felt tremendously sad and guilty at not being able to save all the dinosaurs from the volcano’s wrath.
The massive cargo doors closed, plunging the hold into darkness.
* * *
In Lockwood’s library, a serious man, all business, looked at one of the dinosaur dioramas. Eli Mills walked toward the man, smiling warmly.
“Mr. Eversoll,” he said, “so nice to meet you in person after all this time.”
“Where are the dinosaurs?” Gunnar Eversoll asked, cutting through the pleasantries.
“Oh,” Mills said. “There was a bit of a delay….”
“Am I supposed to sell these?” Eversoll asked sarcastically, jerking a thumb toward the fake dinosaurs in the diorama.
“They’ll be here,” Mills assured him.
Eversoll turned and started to walk away. “I won’t deal with amateurs. I’m contacting my buyers and calling it off.” He pulled out his cell phone and started to make a call.
Panicking a bit, Mills followed after him. “No, wait. The animals will be here tomorrow. Thirty-seven, all told. Your clients won’t be disappointed. Eleven different species. I estimate they’ll fetch at least eight million dollars per species.”
Eversoll snorted. “Eight million dollars is a slow Tuesday in my business. You’re wasting my time. I’m shutting it down.” He tapped on his phone again.
“No, wait,” Mills said urgently. “Let me show you something.” He gestured toward the dioramas. “All this is the past. I want to talk about the future.”
Eversoll looked at him impatiently. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”
Mills led him to an elevator and punched a code into a control pad. From the balcony above, Maisie watched, memorizing the code. The doors opened, and the two men took the elevator down.
“The sale of the Isla Nublar dinosaurs is to finance our future operations,” Mills explained. “It’s seed money. Just the prelude to something much more ambitious.”
“And lucrative, I trust,” Eversoll replied.
When the elevator doors opened, Mills and Eversoll stepped into a huge, gleaming underground lab. “If our history has taught us anything,” Mills continued, “it’s that man is inevitably drawn to war. And that he’ll use any means to win.”
Eversoll realized what Mills was suggesting. “You’re going to weaponize the dinosaurs?”
Mills gave a slight smile, sensing that he’d caught Eversoll’s interest. “We’ve used animals in combat for centuries. Elephants. Horses. The Soviets used disease-bearing rats against troops in Stalingrad.”
He stepped over to a display and activated a revolving hologram of the Indominus Rex. “Our geneticists have created a direct descendant of Dr. Henry Wu’s masterpiece….”
“The Indominus Rex,” Eversoll finished, staring at the hologram.
“Highly intelligent,” Mills said. “Unprecedented sense of smell. Every bone and muscle designed for hunting and killing.”
He nodded toward a glass case that held the invaluable Indominus Rex bone recovered from the bottom of the Jurassic World lagoon. “Her DNA, retrieved from the island, provided the architecture for the new design. We call it the Indoraptor in honor of its illustrious heritage,” Mills said proudly.
Greed lit up Eversoll’s eyes. “Show it to me.”
I’m talking about man-made cataclysmic change.
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
Mills led Eversoll down a metal spiral staircase. The lower level was full of steel cages built into cement walls.
“The world’s superpowers have drones in the sky, underwater, and underground,” Mills said. “Their enemies have no choice but to respond. This animal is vicious, relentless, and expendable.”
As they walked down a long corridor, Eversoll felt nervous, despite the heavy bars on the cages. From one dark cage came a scraping sound.
“The proceeds of tomorrow’s sale will fund our final round of development,” Mills continued. “Once we’ve ironed out the character flaws, we’ll breed them for use in the field.”
“Character flaws?” Eversoll asked, looking concerned.
“Genetic design is trial and error,” Mills said with a slight shrug. “Mostly error.”
Through the bars, Eversoll could make out a shadowy animal in the dark cage. The animal was ten feet tall and sleek. Eversoll could hear it breathing quietly.
“Why’s it so dark in there?” Eversoll asked.
Mills smiled. “The light in the cell burned out. We used two tranquilizing darts to put the Indoraptor down. The technician went into the cage.” He paused and looked at Eversoll. “And that’s when we learned it takes three darts to put it down.”
A SHAFT OF LIGHT IN THE CAGE SHOWED THAT THE INDORAPTOr was using its long claw to toy with a human skull. That was the scraping sound he’d heard.
“But the really interesting part,” Mills continued, “is that when we reviewed the security tapes, we saw that the Indoraptor had purposely broken the light. It was hungry.”
A low growl came from inside the cage. The Indoraptor flicked the skull against the bars. Clink.
“Oh, I wouldn’t stand there,” Mills warned Eversoll. He looked down and saw that his feet were on a line of red tape. He quickly took a step back.
“We need to show this thing to the buyers,” Eversoll said, excited.
The Indoraptor growled.
* * *
In the cargo hold of the transport ship, two dozen trucks with steel cages on their beds were lined up. The cages held sedated dinosaurs. Blue, in pain from her gunshot wound, moaned.
“Shut that thing up!” barked a guard with a flashlight.
Inside the truck, Zia stroked Blue’s neck. “Shh. Easy, now.” The Raptor was restrained and muzzled. The canvas flaps at the back of the truck opened. Claire, Owen, and Franklin climbed in. “You’re alive!” Zia exclaimed. “How did you get—”
Owen put a finger to his lips and crouched down beside Blue.
“Who are all these guys?” Zia whispered, indicating the men on the ship.
“Animal traffickers,” Owen said. “I’ve seen cages like this before. It’s all left over from the ivory trade. They’re gonna sell the dinosaurs.”
Zia shook her head. “Not Blue. They want her for something else, I think. But if I don’t have clean instruments—”
Blue screeched in pain
. The bandage on her leg was red.
“She’s hemorrhaging,” Zia said. She put Claire’s hand over the wound. “Steady pressure.” She then turned to Owen and said, “She’s losing blood fast. We need to get the bullet out.”
“You left it in?” Franklin asked, sounding shocked.
“I’m sorry, are you a doctor?” Zia asked him, annoyed by his implication that she didn’t know what she was doing. She flicked a syringe and injected an anesthetic. The ship rolled, going over a wave. Blue moaned.
“Hey, Blue,” Owen said, trying to comfort her. “Shh…shh…”
“I can’t extract the bullet without a blood transfusion,” Zia said. “Which one of you knows how to find a vein?”
“I used to do blood drives for the Red Cross,” Claire volunteered.
“Great,” Zia said. “You’re gonna put an intravenous catheter into the external jugular, like this one.” She pointed out the jugular vein on Blue’s neck. “Don’t miss. Franklin, take over for Claire.”
She grabbed Franklin’s hand and put it on Blue’s bleeding wound. He did not look happy about this. Zia turned back to Owen and Claire.
“All the animals on this ship are sedated,” she explained. “We need to be at least close on blood type. Look for a carnivore with two or three fingers. No more than three. I think there’s only one of them on board. Got it?”
Making their way silently from truck to truck, Owen and Claire soon found the only dinosaur on board that matched Zia’s description….
The Tyrannosaurus rex.
She lay flat on a slab, locked down by heavy bars. She was sedated, but not completely asleep. Her head was enormous.
Owen nodded to Claire encouragingly. She gently placed her hand on the T. rex’s neck. “Easy,” she murmured. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”
The T. rex growled a deep, low growl.