DNA

Drug Of Choice

****

Robert Keaden Muldoon succeeded in everything he set out to do. Game warden. Hunter. Zookeeper. Fighter. And father. Though it was harder said than done.

Muldoon was outside, sneaking towards his target, gun slung over his shoulder and a six inch Brown knife at his hip. His eyes glanced over the shoe tracks, odd short and curved prints. But tracks he knew all to well. Pushing through the ferns Muldoon was knocked to the side by a small force.

"Haha I got you daddy!" A little girl with a head of feathers and golden eyes smiled down at the hunter as a matching grin broke across his face. "Clever girl." He muttered and helped her stand up, taking her clawed hand in his own, leading her home.

"Did you hear me?" She asked eager to know if she had bested the man at his own sport, an identical outfit and feodora adorning her short frame.

"No and you can't sneak out, little Muldoon." A name she had adapted as Robert chose to let her make her own name on her second birthday which was tomorrow the day they ship all the Dinosaurs to Isla Nublar. Probably Hammond wanting to hide his dirty little secret. All the experiments and dead animals. The missing part in the new lab on Nublar. Construction began on the island in 1988 after the removal of the inhabitants, two Indian tribes, the Nima and the Bribi. A year before Little Muldoon was created..an accident.

An accident Muldoon was glad happened. After the death of his second son in 1986 him and his wife split. Their eldest, Tom Sanders Muldoon, left to Seattle to work at Digicom, before his sibling was born in 1984, two years old, the same age Little Muldoon was.

"Hey daddy, how come all the other Dinosaurs get to run free and I have to stay inside? It isn't fair!" She stomped her foot, making her plastic cowboy gun go off, emitting a loud bang that made Muldoon look around quickly, even if InGen did release just baby Dinosaurs he still didn't trust anything. Him and the other rangers were supposed to collect all the Dinosaurs so they can be shipped over to the new island. Though it got hard trying to find all of them, especially the raptors. Who became lethal at eight months and mature in five years, something his daughter seems to pick up. She was going to be very smart when she's older, just hopefully not lethal. It has yet to show.

"Sweet pea, we talk about this every time you sneak away."

"Then can I please have a tag! Please! I'll be good! And Wu said I should have one! So please daddy!" Her slitted eyes did nothing to persuade the man. When he says something he means it. And Muldoon just didn't want his daughter to get tagged like an animal and set free. Even if it meant having to keep her in all the time, Hammond's orders. But everyday she 'sneaks' out without anyone noticing. Hanging out with who knows, but Muldoon knew it was the raptors, who else could she communicate with, and that set him on edge. Hanging out with the smartest and deadliest group, especially since Doctor Wu kept enhancing all the Dinosaurs to 'perfection' especially with that Reed frog since the yellow poisonous frog had killed the last one.

"No. I don't want you to have one. Now let's hurry inside, it's almost your bedtime. And tomorrow is someone's birthday."

"It's my birthday daddy! Did you forget, silly?" The little girl giggled in her other hand and gazed up to see the flat roof of an enormous building. It covered several acres, stretching away into the distance. It was the size of two football fields. Beyond the vast roof was a large blocky building with a metal roof, which had the functional look of a power plant. At the far end of the main building, there was loading docks, and turnarounds for trucks. And over to the right there was a series of small structures that looked like cottages. The building was of modern design, concrete and glass beneath a portico. Something she always liked about her home.

* * *

Robert tucked her in the bed and kissed her forehead goodnight. "Can you read me a story, daddy?" He looked down at the little girl, her feathers strew all over the cream pillows and matching bed. Her room was nothing special, just filled with books on the far right and pictures on the left, a Becky doll clutched in her arms, she was obsessed with them.

Sighing, the hunter reached for the closest book: The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton, not a very good author in Muldoon's opinion, but non the less he sat down and began to read, watching as the little girl slowly fell asleep. Her excitement for tomorrow slowly dwindling down. An excitement, Robert was going to bring back with her birthday party. It was of course the Becky doll theme, she was particularly in love with the dolls.

Muldoon got up, turned the lights off and headed to the doctors lunch room, where little Muldoon gets taught, mostly about Dinosaurs, as Hammond wants her to be the dinosaur tamer. Something Muldoon thought to be impossible. He may not be a paleontologist, but the man had been around animals most of his life and these ones were extinct, no information on them except they had big bones and still the boss doesn't jot down the animals behavior, food, anything! There should always be a plan B and that's why Muldoon pushed for the Lysine contingency. Which is an amino acid, and if they stop the program then the animals will go in a coma and die in 7 days. Wu inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. They can't manufacture the amino acid lysine unless continuously supplied with lysine. They have it added in each embryo, even Little Muldoon. Something the father hoped never had to be done.

Him and John Raymond Allen Arnold or Ray Arnold, who is the chief engineer of Jurassic Park and is never seen without a cigarette, both set up the Becky party. Ray wouldn't be surprised if little Muldoon turned her name to Becky! It was a small party, most of the workers weren't aware of her or hated her. And the only two Muldoon wished weren't coming is Doctor Henry Wu and John Hammond. He would have said Sorkin, but she was fired last year for trying to sabotage his little girls life. And shot in the leg, an 'accident' he wouldn't mind happening again.