Before Jurassic World

Chapter 28

As it turned out having a seat at the table wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Simon still knew next to nothing and seemed content to remain blissfully ignorant. Short of taking Dr. Wu hostage and forcing the truth of the I-Rex genetics from him I was out of options. Since Owen had forbid me from enacting any plan that involved mild forms of torture I spent time at the I-Rex paddock hoping to guess it on my own. Thus far I had been less than successful. This thing could be made out of unicorn DNA for all I knew.

I sat for hours in the observation area scribbling notes and hypothesis in my diary. Dr. Price would kill me if she knew I was using my diary for such sacrilege, but I thought the diary was giving its life for a good cause. Figuring out what the I-Rex was made out of presented better odds than me ever understanding my feelings.

It was late in the afternoon on a Friday, and the paddock was fairly busy with workers prepping a feeding. I stood up attempting to stretch my aching muscles after hours of sitting on the hard concrete floor. I dropped my diary on the floor as I walked towards the observation windows glancing at the closed circuit TV feed displayed on one of the monitors. I could see Nick, the paddock supervisor, outside organizing the workers at the site.

Feeding the I-Rex was a dangerous affair since there was no crane at paddock 11. I had told Simon repeatedly this was a disaster waiting to happen, and he assured me he would "look into the matter" just as soon as his billionaire ass came back to the island. With Jurassic World less than a few months from opening its doors to the public Simon and other top executives had been gone more and more. It made everything at the park move at a snails pace because getting approval from a man who was half a world away took time. On the plus side, Hoskins was one of the individuals currently not inhabiting the island on a regular basis so I made my peace with not being able to voice my displeasure with Simon face-to-face. It's the little things that make all the difference in this job.

Since there was no crane to drop in meals Nick decided the safest way to feed the I-Rex was by developing a seemingly random pattern of feeding times and locations. Paddock 11 had several exterior doors the crews could open for short intervals to insert the food then close quickly. Nick believed if they picked random doors, at random times, then they would be safe from the mutant dinosaur.

It took me two days to figure out Ellis, one of the paddock workers, was using the same pattern to feed the I-Rex. Sure, they picked somewhat different times, give or take an hour, but there was definitely a pattern. Either Nick was too lazy or too stupid to understand the pattern because nothing had changed. Plus, I was pretty sure Nick didn't believe the I-Rex was smart enough to figure it out. I disagreed, loudly. Hopefully, I was wrong. It's been known to happen from time to time.

Checking my watch I saw it was close to five o'clock and I decided to call it a day. Fingers crossed Owen would come through with his promise to make lasagna tonight. Just thinking about it got me all hot and bothered. Lately Owen had been attempting to teach me to cook in case I was ever released into the wild and forced to fend for myself, but so far it had resulted in multiple smoke alarm situations. I just took that to mean my cooking was so awesome even smoke alarms cheer me on, but Owen insisted it was a bad thing. Whatever, I stood by my position that cereal was an acceptable meal at all times of the day.

Now highly motivated, I moved to gather all my stuff, shoving it into my backpack and walking out the door. The sun was just beginning to dip behind the trees as I made my way down the metal staircase towards my Jeep. I heard the crew getting ready to open the door to insert the goat carcass as I placed my backpack in the backseat.

All at once the paddock erupted into chaos as shouts and screams filled the air. I whirled around narrowing my eyes onto the crew at the door of the paddock. My brain was having a difficult time processing what I was seeing, but my body responded instinctively.