SURVIVORS ↠ ZACH MITCHELL ✔️ [EDITING]

Chapter 5

     In the high-tech control room, consisting of numerous consoles and work stations facing a huge wall of monitors, the centre most of which displays a map of the island, the technicians worked diligently. Over the radio chatter a man could be heard.

     "Two juvenile Triceratops are goin' at it again. Should I tranq 'em or are you coming to take care of this?"

     A second man responded through the radio.

"Yeah, go ahead and tranq 'em—"

"Uh, they're rutting."

     Claire entered holding a Starbucks coffee cup and addressed two of the technicians, Vivian Krill and Lowery Cruthers. Lowery's desk was covered with toy dinosaurs and he was wearing a 'Jurassic Park' shirt instead of a 'Jurassic World' one.

     "What's the live count?" Claire asked.

     "Twenty-two thousand, two-sixteen." Vivian responded.

     "Any incidents?"

     "Yeah, six kids in the lost and found, uh, twenty-eight down with heat stroke, and some-" Claire noticed his shirt of the ill-fated and famous 'Jurassic Park'.

     "Where did you get that?" She pointed to his shirt.

     "Oh, this? I got it on eBay. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I got it for 150 dollars but the mint condition one goes for 300, easy-" Lowery said gushing.

     "Didn't it occur to you maybe that's in poor taste?" Claire questioned annoyed.

     "The shirt? Yeah, no, it did. I understand people died. It was terrible, but..." He said in contrite. But then began gushing again, "The first park was legit! You know, I have a lot of respect for it. They didn't need these genetic hybrids-" Claire sighed. "They just needed dinosaurs. Real dinosaurs. That's kind of enough-"

     Claire stopped him. "Okay, please don't wear it again."

     Lowery nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't gonna..."

     Vivian changed the subject. "Did you close the deal?"

     Claire looked to her. "Looks like it. Verizon Wireless Presents the Indominus Rex."

    Lowery exhaled and lowered his head. "Ugh, that was so terrible," he said exasperated. "Why not just go the distance, Claire? Let these corporations name the dinosaurs. They've got the ballparks. Why stop there?"

     Claire interrupted him, noticing something, "Why are the West Plains closed?" She asked while Vivian explained to her.

     "Another Pachy roaming outside his zone, but he's fully sedated and ready for relocation." Claire nodded to this.

     "Pepsisaurus. Tostitodon." Lowery was still on his earlier tangent.

     "Security said the invisible fences were a no-fail. That is the second time this month." Claire sighed. On one of the screens, there is a sedated Pachycephalosaurus being treated by the crew of a Mercedes Unimog mobile vehicle.

     "Well, the Pachys short out their implants when they butt heads," Vivian told her.

     "How much longer until they got it out of there?" She was getting impatient.

     "He just got five milligrams of carfentanil," Vivian said surprised at Claire.

     "Yes, he's very stoned. So why don't we show a little sympathy?" Lowery commented. Claire smiled, amused. "I mean, you do understand these are actual animals, right?" Claire stared at him with an uncomfortable look and instead of answering, Claire drew attention to his desk.

     She noticed a framed picture of him and Marlo in dinosaur onesies holding up laser tag guns with the chested plate over their suits impersonating James Bond, while surrounded by stuffed dinosaur toys. One she remembered Marlo asking to take on her phone.

     "Clean up your work space. It's...Chaotic."

     Lowery looked to his desk. "I like to think of it as a living system. Just enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy." He adjusted one of the toys that was slightly out of place.

     With her foot, Claire nudged a trash can over. Lowery reached for a bag of chips and knocked a soda cup off the desk, and because Claire nudged the trash can over, it fell into that instead of hitting the floor. The tip remained on, though, so it didn't spill. An embarrassed-looking Lowery retrieved it from the bin and returned it to his desk as Claire exited the control room. The announcer on the P.A spoke up again;

"Inbound chopper, Jurassic 1. ETA five minutes."

     Outside, a blue and white striped Eurocopter Colibri with 'JW001' on the tail flew in and landed on the helipad. Claire got aboard and sat in the backseat. Up front was the park owner Simon Masrani and his flight instructor. Masrani removed his sunglasses.

     "Claire." He greeted.

     "Mr. Masrani! You're...Flying." Masrani shrugged as if it's no big deal while she put her belt on.

     "I got my license," he told her.

     "Two more." The flight instructor held up two fingers.

     "Well, two more days." He turned in his seat. "So, how's my park doing?" He asked.

     "Great," she responded and make a show of consulting some paperwork. "We're up two and a half percent over last year, a bit lower than our initial projections-"

     He interrupted, "No, no, no, how's it doing? Are the guests having fun? Are the animals enjoying life?"

     Claire stared at him. "Well, great satisfaction is steady. In the low nineties. We don't have a way to measure the animals emotional experience."

     "Sure you do. You can see in their eyes, right?" He inquired.

     "Of course," Claire replied. He turned back around.

     "Okay, now show me my new dinosaur..." Everyone braced. Claire gasped as suddenly the aircraft lifted up awkwardly into the air, looking a little wobbly, it went over the park. "Got it, got it...got it," he said loudly.

     The copter zoomed off over the jungle. Masrani was a mediocre pilot at best, but his inexperience despite only two days of training left is made up for his sheer enthusiasm for flying. He was having the time of his life. Claire not so much. She remained braced against her seat, clearly terrified. The flight instructor for his part seemed to be keeping his cool.

     "You look tense, Claire," he stated.

     "Maybe you should just...Focus on the controls..." She motioned to the front with a shaky hand while she sounded nervous.

     "The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control," he explained to her.

     Up ahead, Claire saw something, she began pointing. "Bird!" The instructor jerked, startled, finally losing his cool, as Masrani, imitating the bird's cawing sound, swung abruptly right to avoid colliding with the animal.

     "You should spend a day at the beach. Get some sun." Masrani almost laughed at how tense Claire was.

     "Uh, right, so marketing thought we could offset some of the costs-" Claire tried to imitate work discussions.

     "Ah, enough about costs! John Hammond entrusted me with his dying wish, and not once did he mention profits. 'Spare no expense', he used to say," he interrupted dismissively.

     "I appreciate that, but the reality of operating a theme park is that it requires-" Claire tried again.

     "Don't forget why we built this place, Claire. Jurassic World exists to remind us how very small we are. How new. You can't put a price on that. Now please-" He turned in his seat and smiles. "...We're flying!" He interrupted once more. He put his sunglasses back on and pushed the throttle forward. "Breathe..." They braced themselves once more as the helicopter flew passes a waterfall and came in low over Paddock 11.