Just In Case (Owen Grady- Jurassic World)

Food Chain

Sonya was feeding the Dimos when Hoskins walked up into the cage and caught her attention.

"So are they fast?" He asked. Sonya looked up. She definitely didn't like this guy, but he was paying her so she had to be nice.

"Not as fast as the larger typical pterosaurs, but yes. They can climb too," She said as confidently as she could.

"Wow," Hoskins marveled. "Can I come in? Maybe touch one?"

Sonya opened the gate but not before letting him know that it probably wasn't the best idea to touch them.

"Why?" He asked.

"Well, sometimes they even shy away from us. Even Ari. Dimos are very anxious and timid creatures who don't trust easily. They're curious but they don't like to push it. If they don't trust something off the bat, then they don't approach it." Sonya pointed to Dawn, who despite Hoskins being all the way across the cage, already backed up as far as she could inside her cage.

Hoskins frowned. "What if we did a field test? See how they really react in war. If they get aggressive against people they don't trust, wonder what would happen if they met someone WE didn't trust, right?"

"Not a good idea," Sonya said with an eyebrow raised. "They don't do well in tense situations. They wouldn't do well in war."

"Come on! You'll never know if you don't put them out there! These might be the best military weapons in the world. And with the raptors I'm gonna get, we'll be unstoppable."

Sonya turned away from Dawn and looked Hoskins directly in the eyes.

"Look. You're not gonna convince me, and you're not gonna convince Ari. But be my guest and ask her instead of bothering me."

Hoskins huffed and stormed out of the cage to try and go pitch the field test to Barry and the raptors.

——————

Owen and I marched into the control room from the elevator. The security guard tried to stop us but Owen continued and pulled me along with him.

"What the hell happened out there? There are thermal cameras all over that paddock. She did not just disappear!" He shouted. Claire sighed.

"It must have been a technical malfunction."

"Were you not watching?" Owen retorted. "She marked up that wall as a distraction, she wanted us to think she escaped!"

"Hold on we are talking about an animal here," Claire said quietly as she turned to us.

"A highly intelligent animal!" Owen continued to yell.

"400 meters to the beacon," said a woman from the control desk. Vivian I think was her name. We all turned to the big screen in front of us. The ACU troops got out of their trucks with electric weapons.

"You're going after her with non-lethals?" I growled.

"We have 26 million dollars invested in that asset," Mr. Masrani answered. "We cannot just kill it."

"Those men are gonna die." My voice shook a little as I said this.

"300 meters to the beacon!" Vivian updated us.

"You need to call this mission off right now," Owen hissed.

"They're right on top of it," Lowery said.

"Call it off right now!" Owen said, a little firmer.

"You are not in control here!" Claire screamed, trying to regain command of the room.

We all watched as Hamada, the leader, picked up a chunk of flesh from the forest floor. It had a beeper chip in it.

"The blood's not clotted yet," he said through his communication device. "It's close."

"What's that?" Masrani asked. I walked toward the screen to get a closer look.

"That's her tracking implant, she clawed it out," I answered.

"How would it know to do that?" Claire asked.

"She remembered where they put it in..." I trailed off as we watched.

We watched as the animal emerged from the trees and smashed the commander with its giant foot.

We watched as the heart monitors on the troops went flat one by one, and we watched as a camera picked up the mouth of the animal clamp down right before it went dark.

The control room went silent. Owen turned to Claire and Masrani.

"Evacuate the island," he said.

"We'd never reopen." Claire shook her head. I scoffed.

"You made a genetic hybrid and raised it in captivity." I paced around as I explained this. "She is seeing all of this for the first time. She does not even know what she is. She will kill everything that moves."

"Do you think that the animal is contemplating its own existence?" Masrani asked.

"She is learning where she fits in the food chain and I'm not sure you want her to figure that out," I continued.

"Asset containment has live ammunition in an emergency situation," Owen but in. "You have an M134 in your armory. Put it on a chopper and smoke this thing!"

"We have families here, I am not gonna turn this place into some kind of war zone," Claire retorted.

"You already have!" Owen responded firmly.

"Mr. Grady, Ms. Rengler, if you're not gonna help, there's no reason for you to be in here." Claire's voice wavered a bit. She was really struggling to keep her composure, and so was Owen.

All he could do is swipe away the dinosaurs on Lowery's desk before marching back toward the elevator. He stopped right next to Masrani.

"I would have a word with your people in the lab," he growled. That thing out there... that's no dinosaur."

He continued to storm into the elevator, and I followed close behind him and hung my head as the doors closed.

"Owen what are we gonna do?" I asked desperately as the doors opened onto a different floor, one where all the unsuspecting tourists marveled at exhibits and holograms of different Dino's of the Jurassic era of the world.

"I don't know," he sighed. "But we have to do something."

"You're not suggesting that we go after it ourselves right?" I cried. Some of the tourists around us glanced in our direction with concern but we're quickly distracted by all the bustle of the park.

"No! I- I don't know." Owen stumbled over his words. "What if nobody else does something? We might have to."

"No! Somebody will do something eventually!"

"What if it's too late by then? What if it kills more people?"

"So you're suggesting WE get killed in the process?" I lowered my voice so more people wouldn't get concerned as we made our way through the building.

"Ari listen to me." He pulled me toward him and his hands gripped my shoulders. "I don't know what we're gonna do, but we have to keep our heads and make a decision fast."

I nodded hesitantly and sighed. "Yeah... I know."

He nodded and gave me a tight hug.

"Claire." He called. I pulled away from the hug as I saw her speed walking toward us.

"I need you!" She seemed out of breath. I need your help! My nephews... they're out in the valley. If anything happens to them..."

I pulled her out of the way toward the wall and Owen followed.

"How old?" I asked.

"Uh the um... the older one he's like high school age..." she held up her hand like she was trying to deceive his height. "The younger one, he's uh, a few years-"

"You don't know how old your nephews are?"