The Evolution of Claire

by Tess Sharpe

“It’s a theropod,” I whisper back. “Huge claw on the front finger.” I curl my own finger in imitation. “Baryonyx means ‘heavy claw.’ ”

  “Literal. I like it,” Ronnie says right before Art asks, “Dr. Wu, are you using the same tools to retrieve the DNA as you used with Dr. Hammond?”

  “We’ve streamlined the process some since Hammond’s day,” Dr. Wu acknowledges, and I hear a note of sadness in his voice when he mentions Dr. Hammond’s name. “But the real difference between then and now is in how we approach the DNA sequencing—and how we fill in the missing DNA strands and adjust certain other factors. Now.” He folds his arms and looks at us. “Can you tell me why we’ve adjusted our methods? Starting with you.” He nods at Justin.

  “Um, aesthetics?” Justin asks, sounding nervous to be put on the spot. “I know that some of the dinosaurs—what we think they looked like isn’t totally accurate. Certain fossils suggest that some even had feathers, right? Some fiddling with the DNA is necessary to bring them more in line with what we’ve always been taught they look like?”

  “That’s a reason,” Dr. Wu acknowledges with a nod. “You.” He points to Tanya. “Same question.”

  “Physical adaptation to the modern environment,” Tanya says. “Studies suggest they existed in a world where O2 levels were much higher. So without human interference, those Triceratops we saw yesterday wouldn’t be able to romp around—if they could exist at all, they’d be out of breath all the time. Plus, we’re dealing with dangerously high carbon emissions and a warming climate. All these factors have to be taken into consideration.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Wu says before turning to Ronnie. “And you?”

  “Security,” Ronnie answers in a firm voice, and she seems like the only one in our group who isn’t totally intimidated by Dr. Wu. “Temperament is key to success—the dinosaurs here must be docile and able to adjust to a constant and varied human presence—the staff, scientists, and the public. Which is why I hope you haven’t spliced any hippo DNA into the Triceratops. Those guys are mean.”

  That gets a ghost of a smile from Dr. Wu. “I agree that adding hippo DNA would be a bad idea,” he says. He turns and fixes me with an intent look. “You—what do you think?”

  I try to tamp down my nervousness. I’m no science student, and a lot of the people around me are, which just feeds into the whole imposter syndrome. But I’ve gotta come up with something.

  “Nature always finds a way,” I say.

  Dr. Wu quirks an eyebrow. “Explain.”

  “You make them all female so they won’t reproduce. But nature always finds a way. So do women, generally. Though with us, it’s more just battering against society than fighting nature’s forces. But here, with dinosaurs, you must constantly keep one step ahead of nature. Because they’ll evolve, no matter how many choices you make, or how many different DNA strands you splice into theirs. Evolution is what the beginning and the end have in common. You lose sight of that and none of this will matter, because we’ll be the ones going extinct.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, and I’m worried I’ve offended him, but instead, he just nods thoughtfully and turns back to Masrani. My fellow interns crowd together at the window just as the scientists working on the amber start drilling. I lean in, but I’m still close enough to Dr. Wu and Masrani that I can catch their conversation. I’m not actively trying to eavesdrop, but I can’t help hearing Dr. Wu say, “The one with the camera is no use to me. And the business major doesn’t belong in my labs.”

  “Justin is majoring in business, yes, but he’s a chem minor,” Mr. Masrani explains over the sound of the drill. The scientists have slowed it to a crawl as the tip nears the first mosquito.

  “Key word being minor.” Dr. Wu waves this away like it’s an insult. “I’ll take the girl who talked about the changing environment and O2 levels. And the redhead has some foresight, at least, so I’ll take her, too. I suppose these interns might be better than the train-wreck first batch.”

  I can’t stop myself from looking over at them, because I thought Beverly said we were the first batch of interns.

  “That is a huge needle,” says Ronnie, and my eyes return to the scientists, who have pulled the drill out of the amber and are inserting a long needle. We watch with bated breath as the needle makes its way into what’s left of the mosquito’s body—that scientist’s hands have to be so steady. I’d be too nervous to do it. My hands would shake and I’d screw it up and at the end, instead of potential dinosaur DNA in that glass syringe, there’d be fossilized bug guts spilled all over.

  Because the scientists are standing in the way, none of us can see if they got it. But then a voice over the speaker near the fingerprint scanner says, “Retrieval from specimen successful, Dr. Wu.”

  “Very good, Jamie,” Dr. Wu says with a rare smile. “Let me know when you’ve retrieved specimens B through D, and we’ll start the identification process.”

  The look he gives Beverly is cutting. “I believe my free time is up,” he says, and it’s not a question.

  Beverly presses her lips together. “We’ll talk about intern rotations at the staff meeting?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Dr. Wu replies, his tone saying the exact opposite.

  “Thank you, Dr. Wu!” Tanya calls cheerfully as Beverly ushers us out of the lab. He doesn’t turn around. He’s already heading into the amber room, his face intent, his focus back on the important work.

  We take the elevator back up to the lobby, and Beverly turns to us, smiling. “It’s almost three o’clock, so you have free time until dinner. There are jeeps outside you can drive, and there’s a map on your tablets that shows the areas you’re allowed in without supervision. You can go swim in the resort area or visit the arboretum and public greenhouses—not the research ones—and our media center in the hotel is stocked with all sorts of games and movies. Any questions? Okay, then, we’ll see you at dinner.”

  The twins, Ronnie, Art, and Justin hang back with me to figure out what we want to do.

  “I need to hit the gym before I have my call with my family,” Ronnie says. “So I’m gonna go back to the hotel.”

  “I’ll drive back with you, then,” Art says. “I could do with a run before dinner.”

  “I want to go see the greenhouses,” Tanya says.

  “That sounds fun,” I say. “I’ll come with you.”

  So Ronnie and Art head back to the hotel, and the twins and Justin and I load up in a jeep with Eric and Tanya in the back. Justin’s driving, and I’m up front beside him.

  I open my tablet to the map Beverly mentioned. There are areas in green and areas in red—pretty straightforward, really. I tap the greenhouse icon, and a cartoon DNA strand pops up in the corner of my screen. It bops back and forth, a little bubble appearing above its googly eyes: Hi! I’m Mr. DNA. Do you need directions to the greenhouses?

  I tap Yes, and Mr. DNA bounces across the map. Take a right in .5 miles.

  I navigate as Justin drives us to the greenhouse. Mr. DNA’s directions get us there faster than I expected. Tanya bounds out of the car, much the way Lovelace emerged from the container into the valley. The rest of us follow her almost as eagerly. It feels a little intimidating and thrilling to be on our own here like this.

  The series of glass-walled buildings in front of us are not your traditional greenhouses. They’re geodesic domes, enormous ones that look like they belong in some futuristic alien world. The sunlight glints off their transparent surface, and we pass a sign that identifies the material not as glass, but as the same plastic polymer invented to create the aviary designed to hold the Pteranodons.

  The greenhouses and the arboretum that lies beyond them are completely finished—there’s no trace of construction anywhere, just lots and lots of hard work. Laying the foundation for this monumental project must have started as soon as Masrani began
work on the island.

  “I’m in love!” Tanya declares, running up the stairs of the biggest dome. “If there are Hügelkultur beds inside, I’m gonna die!”

  “What is a Hügelkultur bed?” I ask Eric as Tanya disappears into the greenhouse. “Or should I just ask her?”

  Eric’s eyes widen. “Don’t,” he says. “It’s a German gardening method, but if you get her started, she’ll never stop talking your ear off about what goes into making fertile soil.”

  Justin laughs, grabbing the door and opening it for us. Inside the dome, it’s like we’ve stepped into another universe: a hotter, muggy, colorful future where nature reigns. The curved walls and triangular pieces that make up the dome and the filtered green light shining on us are soothing, creating a space that wraps us in a kind of primal ease. I can imagine lying down on one of the benches scattered along the paths among the specimen garden beds and just closing my eyes, letting the sun and the scents and the sound of trickling water carry me off.

  Tanya is nowhere to be seen—she’s already disappeared into the flora—and I take a second because there is so much to look at. Palm trees loom over the greenhouse door, tied down to twist their trunks into an arch, and the raised beds that circle the floor inside the dome are exploding in a color riot of exotic flowers.

  “Eric!” Tanya’s voice calls. She sounds far away—this dome is enormous. “I found the carnivorous plants!”

  Eric grins. “See you two later,” he says, pulling his camera out of his bag and jogging down the aisle, looking for his twin.

  Justin and I walk farther into the greenhouse. I hear other voices too now, and we turn the corner around an array of ferns to see Wyatt standing there with a girl with long black hair and a turned-up nose who reminds me of a pixie.

  They’re looking at the orchids grouped on the potting table ahead, and the girl laughs when the sprinklers turn on automatically, startling her. A fine mist floats over the orchids.

  “Hi!” she says, catching sight of us down the way.

  “Hey,” I call back. “Amanda, right? The marine biology major?”

  She nods. “You’re Claire and…Justin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wyatt’s been indulging my flower obsession,” Amanda says, smiling widely. Wyatt looks smug.

  “The orchids are beautiful,” Justin says.

  “I’m obsessed,” Amanda says, turning back to them and angling her tablet so she can take more pictures as Wyatt hangs back. He probably doesn’t want Justin to embarrass him in front of the girl he’s flirting with. Hopefully, Amanda will see through his gross negging approach. Why do guys ever think that’ll work?

  I put my own tablet away, pulling out my notebook instead because I want to write down the names of the ferns before I forget.

  “Look at you, all analog,” Justin says, smiling.

  “Gotta love the classics,” I say. “The tablet’s great, but I remember things so much better when I write them down. Typing’s just never been the same.”

  “I get it. I’m the geek who records all his classes and notes,” Justin admits.

  “No way, you’re the guy in the front with the recorder?”

  “Yup,” he says. “I’m a total auditory learner.”

  “Kinesthetic, obviously,” I say, tucking my pen behind my ear. I can see his eyes catch the movement. Turning pink is so not in my plans, but it’s going to happen if he keeps looking at me like that.

  “Hey.” I lower my voice, hoping Amanda and Wyatt can’t overhear. “Since you’re an auditory learner, did you catch that weird thing Dr. Wu said in the lab?”

  His brow furrows under his hair. “What weird thing?”

  “After I answered his question in the lab, I heard him tell Masrani that maybe this intern batch wouldn’t be as useless as ‘the train-wreck first batch.’ But…we’re the first Bright Minds interns. So what did he mean?”

  “I was focused on the amber; I didn’t hear them,” he says. “Maybe Dr. Wu was talking about his lab interns? But that doesn’t make sense, since he would’ve picked those.”

  Someone snorts next to us. Justin grits his teeth, pushing his glasses up his nose before he turns and levels Wyatt with a look. “You’ve got something to contribute, Wyatt?” he asks.

  “I guess you two aren’t as keyed in to the rumors about Jurassic World as you thought,” Wyatt says.

  “What rumors?” Amanda asks. “Do you have gossip, Wyatt? Tell!”

  Wyatt looks around at each of us, a superior expression on his face. “I thought everyone who researched Bright Minds would’ve stumbled across the stories about the phantom interns.”

  What is he talking about? Justin glances at me like he regrets even engaging Wyatt.

  “Phantom interns? What do you mean?” I ask, even though I know that’s exactly what he wants me to ask.

  “There was another group of Bright Minds interns before us,” Wyatt says. “The program wasn’t called Bright Minds back then. They probably changed the name after the incident.” He examines a spotted orchid carefully, like it’s way more interesting than the story he clearly wants to tell.

  “So you’re saying there are like, intern ghosts?” I ask, unable to keep the incredulity out of my voice. Is he for real?

  “They’re called the phantom interns because all evidence of the program disappeared,” Wyatt says. “Not because they’re ghosts.”

  “Why would they do that?” Justin asks.

  “Why do you think?” Wyatt asks. “Because something happened in that group during their time here. Something bad enough to cover up.”

  “No way!” Amanda says. “Are you sure?”

  “Is this another one of the ‘They’re feeding people to the dinosaurs’ rumors?” Justin asks. “You spending some time on the conspiracy theory websites, Wyatt? I thought your dad worked for Masrani. Why are you stirring things up?”

  “I’m just answering your questions,” Wyatt says. “And I didn’t say anything about feeding people to dinosaurs. This goes way deeper than that.”

  I can’t tell if he’s just spinning a story or if he’s serious. He’s acting all dramatic and supercilious, and it’s getting on my nerves. I can hear the twins talking near the carnivorous plants on the other side of the greenhouse, and I’m tempted to go over there and leave this nonsense behind. But what if there’s something to his weird story?

  “After the initial boundaries of the park were built, they began transporting some of the Brachiosauruses over from Isla Sorna. The interns—the program that would become Bright Minds—were brought here to help the staff with integrating them into their Nublar habitats.”

  “Okay,” Justin says. “Every company uses interns. Was the scandal that they weren’t paid?” Sarcasm drips off his words, and Amanda giggles, which makes Wyatt turn red. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing too, because we all know our futures include lots of unpaid internships for a chance to break into our fields. It sucks.

  “They were a month or two into the work when there was a storm,” Wyatt says. “It was so bad it fried the main electrical grid, and the backup generators were overloaded—everyone had to evacuate.”

  “Still not seeing a reason for a cover-up,” Justin says, sounding bored.

  It’s petty, but I enjoy how much it seems to annoy Wyatt that he can’t ruffle or one-up Justin.

  “There’s a reason. A big one. In the rush to evacuate, they left someone behind. A girl intern.” Wyatt says, with enough relish to send chills down my body, especially when I really think about it.

  A storm. Chaos in the evacuation. Maybe you’re out of radio contact and don’t even know it’s happening. Maybe you go back for something precious. And then when you rush to the rendezvous point…the boat is already gone. And you’re alone.

  Well, not exactly alone. But that woul
d add to the terror: the dinosaurs your only company in a brutal, battering storm, the power grid out, leaving you so very vulnerable.

  A primal kind of terror would take over. Run. Hide. Survive. Because sure, they’re herbivores, but one misstep and you’re squished, the dinosaur version of roadkill. They wouldn’t even notice.

  “That’s gotta be an urban myth or something,” Amanda says, but her mouth twists, her curiosity piqued.

  “You can’t believe these rumors,” Justin scoffs. “If an intern had died in the storm, or gotten left behind and then died, we wouldn’t be here right now. Jurassic World wouldn’t be here. The intern’s parents would have gone to the authorities. We would have seen the headline everywhere. Masrani would have been sued, and the insurance revoked.”

  “I thought you were a business major,” Wyatt says snidely. “Ever heard of bribes? InGen certainly has. That’s how they covered up the original park in the nineties. Ian Malcom was made out to be a pariah because he wouldn’t play their game.”

  “Which would mean that they probably learned their lesson, since it got out eventually anyway. And it’s not the nineties anymore. Ian Malcom didn’t have a camera phone. There’s technology that would make it even easier to be a whistleblower now—and to have the proof to back it up. You’re talking about a massive cover-up,” I point out. “Dozens of nondisclosure agreements would need to be signed. You’d have to keep not only all the interns quiet, but their families and the staff.”

  “Issuing dozens of NDAs is a normal day for someone like Masrani,” Wyatt says.

  “Sure,” I say, because as much as I hate to admit it, he has a point. We had to sign NDAs as part of our contract. “But you’re telling me somehow the bigwigs of Jurassic World managed to hush up parents whose child they lost because of the park’s incompetence? What did they do, fake her death some other way? Are you kidding me? Come on.”

  “Money is a powerful motivator,” Wyatt says, like he can’t wait until he can exert that kind of power over people.

  It makes my stomach churn like a boat navigating choppy waters. I want to make real change, but not at the cost of hurting people. Wyatt seems to thrive on the idea of winning at all costs, and I know better than to think like that. Some costs are too high.