by David Lewman
Above, Owen, Claire, and Maisie watched through the grate, stunned. “What is that thing?” Claire asked.
“They made it,” Maisie said. “Mr. Mills and the other man.”
“What other man?” Claire asked.
Maisie pointed down. Claire followed her finger and spotted her former employee, Dr. Henry Wu, glaring at the proceedings.
The Indoraptor hissed. The crowd murmured excitedly. Eversoll raised his hands for quiet. “Designed by Mr. Henry Wu—”
Wu cleared his throat pointedly.
“Excuse me, Dr. Henry Wu,” Eversoll corrected himself, “the Indoraptor has an intelligence quotient comparable to the Velociraptor. Bio specs include echolocation and a heightened sense of smell.”
Eversoll nodded to a guard with a rifle, signaling him.
“The Indoraptor has been trained to respond to a pulse-coded laser targeting system,” Eversoll continued, “allowing it to isolate and track prey in complex environments.”
The guard raised his rifle and flipped on its targeting laser. He focused the beam of light on Anton, the Russian mobster. In the cage, the Indoraptor responded immediately, coiling and focusing intently on the Russian.
Anton looked at Eversoll with confusion and concern.
Suddenly, the Indoraptor leapt toward Anton. Luckily for the Russian, the cage held. The predator snapped at the bars viciously.
“Modifications are still being made,” Eversoll said, “but—”
“TWENTY MILLION!” Anton shouted.
Eversoll sucked in his breath, amazed at the bid. He glanced at Mills, as if to say, Do I proceed?
Mills nodded.
The guard clicked off the laser, and the Indoraptor calmed down.
“Do I hear twenty-one?” Eversoll asked.
“Twenty-two!” shouted another bidder.
Watching from above, Owen felt disgusted. He had to do something. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Stay here.”
“What are you going to do?” Claire asked.
“How should I know?” he admitted.
He put Maisie’s hand in Claire’s. Seeing that the girl was frightened, he promised, “We’re not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”
Maisie nodded. Owen crept out into the hall. Over his shoulder, he said, “She probably shouldn’t watch this.” Maisie nodded again and put her hands over Claire’s eyes.
Down in the garage, the bidding was heating up. The Indoraptor stared daggers at the excited buyers. Anton hungrily bid twenty-five million.
Mills was keeping track of bids on a laptop. Wu went up to him, angry. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “This animal is not for sale!”
“If you want to create an addict,” Mills said calmly, “give them a taste.”
“It isn’t finished!” Wu objected. “It’s a prototype!”
“This prototype is worth twenty-five million dollars,” Mills pointed out. “Right now.” Wu still looked furious. “Relax, Henry. We’ll make more.”
“So will they,” Wu countered, jerking his head toward the excited bidders. Mills looked at them. Many seemed like pretty shady characters. Still, all that money…
Mills gave Wu a look that said his objection was overruled. Wu stormed out.
The bidding for the Indoraptor had reached thirty-two million dollars and was still rising.
In a basement corridor, Owen searched for some way to disrupt the auction. He spotted a fuse box and opened it, unsure of what to do.
DING! Down the hall, an elevator door opened, but the elevator was empty.
Then Owen heard a familiar bray behind him. At the end of the corridor he saw the Stygimoloch. She crashed into a steam pipe, seeming disoriented and somewhat frustrated by the unfamiliar experience of being inside a mansion.
Owen looked at the Stygimoloch, and then at the open elevator. Idea!
“Hey, buddy,” he said to Stiggy. “You’re angry, huh? How about we get some of that out of your system?”
This change was inevitable from the moment the first dinosaur was brought back from extinction.
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
“Thirty-seven million!” Anton shouted.
ROOOAARR! The Indoraptor roared and lunged, testing his cage’s bars.
DING! The elevator arrived. A guard stood in front of the doors, ready for whoever stepped out.
Actually, he wasn’t ready.
WHAM! Stiggy ran out of the elevator and head-butted the guard, who flew fifteen feet and slid to a stop, unconscious.
The frantic buyers scattered as Stiggy smashed through them like bowling pins. Owen jumped down from the top of the elevator and saw a guard about to shoot her. He sprinted over and slammed his elbow into the guard’s face.
The garage was a scene of chaos as buyers and chairs flew through the air, bashed by Stiggy. From his cage, the Indoraptor watched, huffing. He was hungry.
Mills watched as his dream turned into a disaster, and then he slipped out of the room. Eversoll ducked behind the concrete platform.
Owen saw a guard pull a lever, activating the mechanism to roll the Indoraptor’s cage out. He knew he had to stop that cage before some buyer made off with the genetic monster. Fighting his way past guards and buyers, Owen pulled the lever hard and broke it. The Indoraptor wasn’t leaving.
As Stiggy rampaged around the garage, Owen looked up at the grate, signaling to Claire and Maisie that he’d be right there. They understood.
He raced out of the room, dodging chairs and bodies.
Outside, by the loading dock, buyers scrambled to escape with their dinosaurs, driving off in trucks. Stiggy crashed out and raced into the forest, free.
“Get this cargo outta here!” Wheatley barked. “Move!”
In the garage, the Indoraptor roared. Wheatley saw an opportunity and headed inside.
Holding a tranquilizer rifle, Wheatley strode toward the Indoraptor’s cage. The hybrid dinosaur looked at him, growled, and bashed his head against the bars, rattling the cage. THUNK! Wheatley fired a dart into the Indoraptor’s neck. He bashed the bars again, furious.
After reloading, Wheatley shot another dart into the Indoraptor. THUNK! The Indoraptor dropped to the floor of his cage. Wheatley opened his vest and pulled out a pair of pliers. He looked at the Indoraptor and swapped the pliers for a bigger pair.
He slowly stretched his arm through the bars of the cage, trying to reach the Indoraptor’s mouth. But it was just beyond his grasp. If he wanted another trophy tooth, he’d have to go in there.
Wheatley unlocked the door and silently entered the cage. He crouched down and lifted the animal’s lip. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said, smiling sadistically. “Hope this doesn’t hurt too much.”
He fitted the pliers around a tooth. But before he could yank it out—the Indoraptor’s eye opened. His tail twitched, and his lip curled cruelly.
CHOMP! The Indoraptor clamped his powerful jaws on Wheatley’s arm. Wheatley screamed as the hybrid terror rose to his feet, lifting Wheatley off the floor of the cage. A loud snap echoed around the room and Wheatley fell to the ground, one arm now missing. He tried to back away from the Indoraptor. But there was no escape. Only another—
CHOMP!
Hearing Wheatley howl in pain before he died, Eversoll winced. He started to creep from his hiding place behind the concrete platform to the open elevator, trying to be silent.
He made it. When he stepped into the elevator, he found three cowering buyers. He gave them a contemptuous look and pressed the CLOSE DOOR button.
DING!
It was the bell from the elevator! The Indoraptor whipped around and raced toward it. Eversoll watched in horror as the doors slowly closed…just in time. He exhaled, safe.
Outside the elevator, the Indoraptor turned away in search
of other prey. But his tail smacked against the button. The doors opened again. Eversoll stared at the Indoraptor, horrified. The predator leapt into the elevator, making quick work of the four men inside. Their screams reached up to the service tunnel above the garage…
…where Owen had rejoined Claire and Maisie. Claire covered the girl’s ears. Owen knelt down. “Okay,” he said soothingly. “Look at me. Stay close to me, okay? I’m gonna go first.”
He headed down the narrow tunnel. Maisie took Claire’s hand as they followed him. They reached a cross tunnel and saw a door just ahead of them to the right. Owen reached to open it, but then—
“Hold it right there!” a guard barked, advancing on them with his gun aimed. “Drop your weapon to the ground, now!”
Owen slowly took the rifle from his shoulder and placed it on the floor.
“Slide it over,” the guard ordered.
He slid it across the floor toward the guard and started to raise his hands. The guard spoke into his radio. “I’ve got three—”
WHAM! From a cross tunnel, the Indoraptor slammed into the guard like a freight train! Both disappeared into the tunnel. Maisie screamed!
We don’t conceive of sudden radical, irrational change as woven into the very fabric of existence. Yet I can assure you, it most assuredly is. And it’s happening right now.
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
Owen opened a door behind them. “Come on!”
The Indoraptor came roaring around the corner. Owen slammed the door, but the Indoraptor crashed against it, snapping its jaws. Pushing together, Owen and Claire managed to close the door and turn the lock.
“This way,” Maisie said.
* * *
In the sub-basement lab, Dr. Wu oversaw the packing of embryos and the Indominus bone, telling a technician to be careful. He grabbed another employee. “You—I need blood samples from the Raptor.”
The other employee was actually Franklin!
“Don’t stand there like an idiot,” Wu snapped. He pointed to a cabinet. “Get me a blood kit.” As Franklin rummaged in the cabinet, Wu went to Blue’s cage. Zia was nearby with her wrist handcuffed to a pipe.
“I need that animal’s blood,” Wu said to her.
Blue hissed at him with her claws out.
“Sure,” Zia said. “Go ahead.”
Wu reached toward Blue, but she snapped, nearly taking his hand off.
“Oh, by the way,” Zia added, “her blood is contaminated now.”
Putting on rubber gloves, Wu said, “I designed this animal myself. It’s pure.” He barked over his shoulder, “Kit, please!”
“Yeah,” Zia said, nodding, “but I gave her a blood transfusion from a T. rex. Not so pure anymore.”
Wu’s eyes opened wide with anger…then surprise as a needle plunged into his neck. Tranquilizers meant for dinosaurs coursed through his system. He groaned as he collapsed, falling through a tray of blood samples.
Standing over him was Franklin, who now looked different—brave, almost heroic.
Zia stared. “Who are you?”
“Same guy, different day!” Franklin said, grabbing Wu’s keys and unlocking Zia’s cuffs.
“Hey!” shouted a big guard. “Step away from the animal!”
As the guard moved toward them holding his gun, Zia reached behind her back and unbolted Blue’s cage door. Franklin saw what she was doing.
“I said get away from the cage! Now!”
Zia swung the door open. She and Franklin hid behind it for protection. Blue burst from the cage, killing the guard before he could get a shot off. More guards ran in and raised their guns, and Blue quickly dispatched them, but not before one of the guards fired a shot.
The guard’s stray bullet hit a nitrogen tank. BOOM! Gas filled the lab as Blue, Zia, and Franklin ran out. An alarm sounded. Lit displays warned: SYSTEM FAILURE.
* * *
Owen, Claire, and Maisie entered the darkened library, knowing Wheatley’s men and the Indoraptor were still in the mansion. Maisie pointed to a door at the other end of the large chamber.
They were halfway across when Owen held up his hand. They stopped. He’d seen a dying guard on the floor next to the Triceratops skeleton. His laser rifle was next to him. Suddenly, the guard was dragged behind the base of the statue.
The Indoraptor emerged. Done eating the guard, he now stalked Owen, Claire, and Maisie. They crawled around the base of the skeleton. Owen reached for the gun, but the dead guard’s radio crackled, catching the Indoraptor’s attention.
They looked up. The Indoraptor had climbed onto the Triceratops skeleton, claws gripping its horns.
He saw them again.
They ran. The Indoraptor launched after them! They climbed the spiral staircase that led to the mezzanine. The Indoraptor slammed into the bars encircling the staircase, trying to get at them. They scrambled up to the mezzanine. “This way!” Maisie cried.
She led them to a paneled wall in the corner, just as the Indoraptor climbed over the rail from below. Maisie pulled at the paneling, revealing a hidden door. Owen pushed Maisie and Claire through first before slipping in himself. Claire and Maisie hurried down a ladder into the dinosaur dioramas back on the first level.
Owen opened the door a tiny crack to see if the Indoraptor had followed them. Silence. Then…WHAM! The predator slammed himself against the door. Owen quickly climbed down the ladder with his heart racing.
Inside the row of dioramas, Owen found a set of switches and shut off the lights. It was dark and silent. They had no idea where the Indoraptor was.
“There’s a door at the other end,” Maisie whispered.
They made their way through the displays of dinosaurs. In the basement control room, the system rebooted itself, enabling backup power. Lights flickered on.
When Owen, Claire, and Maisie reached the door at the far end of the museum space, it was jammed. As Owen worked on opening it, the lights in the museum space turned on, one by one, until the space was fully illuminated.
Maisie peered at the glass, but because it was bright inside the diorama and dark outside, she could only see her own reflection. Then lightning flashed outside, and the Indoraptor’s face was lit up. He was right on the other side of the glass!
Maisie screamed as the Indoraptor smashed into the diorama!
Our home has, in fundamental ways, been polluted by avarice.
—Dr. Ian Malcolm
Inside the small space, the Indoraptor thrashed to get at the humans, knocking a huge log into Claire and Owen, trapping them against the wall. “Get away from here!” Claire yelled to Maisie. “Run!”
Maisie ran past the Indoraptor, who slashed at Owen and Claire, wounding Claire in the leg. Claire screamed!
The beast tore free of the diorama. More debris fell on Owen and Claire, trapping them further. The Indoraptor ran after Maisie, his sharp talons clicking on the library floor.
Maisie sprinted into the foyer, up the stairs, and down the hallway, making for the dumbwaiter. The Indoraptor was close behind her. She dove into the dumbwaiter and slammed the door right in the predator’s face.
From inside the dumbwaiter, Maisie was able to ride up to the next floor. But the Indoraptor followed her scent through the wall, raising his head as she rose inside the dumbwaiter. The beast was no longer chasing…
…it was hunting.
Back in the diorama, Owen and Claire had managed to tear themselves free from the log. But Claire injured her leg in the process and struggled to stand. “Find her,” she said.
“I’m not leaving you,” Owen said.
“I’m fine. Go!”
Up in her bedroom, Maisie dove under the covers and hid.
Following her scent, the Indoraptor found his way into the dark bedroom. Maisie tried not to breathe as the predator moved slowly across the ro
om, drawing closer and closer. When the terrible creature was just inches away, Owen flung open the door, armed with the dead guard’s rifle. The Indoraptor spun to face him.
“Maisie, get down!” he shouted.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Owen fired at the Indoraptor and seemed to wound him. But Owen soon ran out of bullets. The beast rose to his full and terrible height and backed Owen into a corner—
Suddenly, Blue appeared in the doorway! Seeing Owen in danger, Blue attacked the Indoraptor, digging her claws in deep. The two dinosaurs thrashed around the bedroom, destroying it. Pillow feathers hung in the air like snow. Owen dashed across the room, picked up Maisie, and went out the window, climbing to a balcony.
“This way!” Maisie said.
They cautiously made their way around the glass roof over the library.
CRASH! The Indoraptor smashed through a window onto the roof in hot pursuit! Through that same window, Owen could see Blue inside the bedroom, wounded but alive.
To escape the Indoraptor, Owen and Maisie had to climb across the glass roof, and ended up hanging off the side of the mansion from a weather vane. The creature stalked them across the roof, beams straining under his weight. He had almost reached them when—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
They saw Claire behind the monstrous dinosaur, banging on roof beams with the rifle Owen had dropped back in Maisie’s bedroom. While the Indoraptor looked at Claire, Owen raised Maisie to a safer spot.
Then Claire turned on the rifle’s laser and aimed it…at Owen’s chest!
The Indoraptor coiled, ready to attack. Owen looked at Claire, realized what she was doing, and winked at her.
With the laser dots still on his chest, Owen ran right toward the Indoraptor. The trained killing machine leapt at Owen, roaring. But at the last second, Owen jumped aside and slid down the roof. The Indoraptor narrowly missed clawing Owen. He landed right on the fragile glass section of the roof and crashed through!