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Hammond's Dream Ch.5
By Amber
Incidents
Dr. Derrick Carter was thirty six and the department head of paleontology at Berkley. He new there was a problem with the Sorna trip and he was having second thoughts about going to the island. He sat in his office and wondered, although as a paleontologist he still couldn't imagine he was going to see living prehistoric creatures.
“Hey dad!” Came from outside of his open office door, “is it time to go yet?”
“Wait a second Mia,” Carter said.
Mia was Carters only child, and an attractive blonde. It was now summer and she couldn’t wait for her senior year in high school. She loved coming to campus with her dad so she could talk to all the college guys who were there working during the summer. She would usually go down to the vending machine, buy a soda, and wait for a campus student to walk by. she had been raised up a bit spoiled since her mother died when she was three.
Mia looked down at her fathers desk and saw the map of Costa Rica he was staring at. “So, when’s our vacation to Costa Rica?”
“I told you before, it’s not a vacation, it’s scientific research,” Carter replied.
“Yah right, scientific research on the beach, under the sun I bet. Why can’t I go?”
“Because if you go you’ll start whining about going home and I’ll have to hear about it the whole time; besides, you get to spend a whole weekend with Uncle Don and the babies.” Carter said. Mia frowned.
“So dad, is it time to go home yet, I’m starving”, she groaned.
“I guess we can go now. Let me pick up my things while you go to Mrs. Greenfield's room and see if she has any donuts left, I’ll meet you at the car.”
Mia picked up her bag and left the room. Carter sat down and searched for his notepad in his desk drawers. He began to think of everything he heard about Isla Sorna.
Originally the trip to Sorna was actually going to be the first stop before heading to the neighboring island of Isla Pena, it was scrubbed though by the InGen board of directors, due to financial problems. Carter was also aware of the islands history of accidents. Over the last six years there had been a few visitors to the island that had been injured or killed. In 1997, Ian Malcolm and Sarah Harding had visited the island and discovered a lost world as they called it. This was John Hammonds breeding ground for the dinosaurs to be brought to Isla Nublar when they matured. The expedition was headed by a scientists named Richard Levine. He had vehicles ordered from Mobile Field systems run by Jack Thorne. The group returned to Costa Rica with one casualty. Reportedly, Lewis Dodgson had also left for the island, but never returned with his colleagues. It was believed his trip was just an alibi to escape the country, he was already in trouble for reported espionage.
Shortly after the island was made public a new CEO was apointed by the board of directors. Since Ingen was on the verge of chapter eleven, they decided to exploit there assets for profit, but the Costa Rican government put a block to the island and restricted Sorna. In the mean time, Ingen was in a battle with the government which wanted to dismantle the island permanently as they did with Isla Nublar. Animal rights activists jumped at the Costa Rican government for even putting out the idea of making dinosaurs extinct again.
A while back there was an illegal paragliding accident in which a boy became lost on the island. A few months later the boy’s parents hired Alan Grant to conduct an aerial tour of the island, or at least that’s what he was told. The actual plan was for the party to land on the island and retrieve the boy. Instead the plane crashed and again, there were a few casualties before the survivirs were rescued.
On the other hand there had been some scientific visits to the island that had gone ahead smoothly. New problems though had been occurring on the mainland of Costa Rica. There had been mysterious disappearances, deaths, agricultural problems, and sightings. Some members of fishing villages such as Oracou have seen animals that aren’t native to the area. Some say they have seen large lizards, others say they’ve seen large predators in the night attacking livestock.
The Sorna expedition is the first step in a project to answer a question that has been lingering about since the early nineties. The theory that animals of Jurassic Park have migrated to the main land, and if so, how far have they spread.
Carter had been studying these incidents for about two years now. He was assigned by Scott Philips to record and document the sightings in Costa Rica, and Carter decided the best way to prove his theory was to plan an expedition. Luckily Philips has influence on the Costa Rican government, and now he was ready.
“ Hey Derrick, you in?” A man said as he entered the room.
“Yah, I’m here Clay,” Carter replied. “What’s up?”
Clayton James was one of Carter’s closer friends from the paleontological department. Actually he was Carter’s student a few years back, but now helped out as an assistant, volunteering in the lab. Mostly scraping bones and cataloging.
“Well guess who I just saw” Clay said as he sat down on a desk. “Remember Julia Henderson, I ran into her on the way up here, she was talking to Dr. Davis, she said she would come up here and pay you a visit if she had time. Oh, and I also caught Mia down at Mrs. Greenfield’s room grabbing some food. Don’t you feed her at home?” Clay grinned.
“Yah, I sent her down there to grab something before we left, I’m just trying to find my note pad.”
“You mean, this one here on your desk?” Clay picked it up and waved it in front of Carter with a smile. “Hey, cool drawing, what is it?”
On the notepad there was a drawing made up of different color lines and concentric circles. There were numbers and letters. The lines were in red and blue, and a few were in green.
“It’s nothing, just some drawings of land satellite pictures.”
“Is this a dig site?” Clay asked.
“No, it’s just an old map I drew from some books in the library. Mostly just islands.”
“Yah, something I’m really interested in.” Clay sarcastically remarked as he dropped the notepad on the desk.
“Actually, I’m glad you dropped by Clay, I was afraid I was going to miss you before I left. Do you have any big plans toward the end of the summer?”
“Well, I was planning to work on the Allosaurus skeleton, try to get it out of the way before we get that rex from Montana down here. And there’s going to be this awesome meteor shower in late August. They’re supposed to come real close. If they graze the atmosphere we can see some real fireworks.”
Carter laughed. “You know you’re idea of fun is more like my idea of work. Do me a favor and go see a movie one of these days. A wiz when it comes to bones, but gees man, take a break.” Carter tried to be as sarcastic as he could.
“And that‘s why just last week you were telling me I should be taking my work more seriously?”
“Yah, but this is sarcasm.”
Carter and Clay both turned back to see who was watching them from the doorway. It was Mia, she was waiting impatiently at the door tapping her foot. Clay waved in response, but Mia just stood there tapping in the doorway.
“I’m coming, I just had to find my notepad. See, here it is.” Carter picked up his notepad and placed it in his briefcase. “Go to the car and wait for me there,” Carter tossed the car keys to his daughter. She snatched them out of the air, turned, and walked out the door.
“Sweet girl,” Clay said with a smile.
“Oh yah, laugh it up now, just wait until you live with a teenage girl of your own.” Carter shut his briefcase and took his office keys out of his pocket.
“I can’t wait.” Clay said.
Carter reached under his desk and pulled out a cardboard box labeled in Spanish. He wiped the dust off the top and placed it on his desk next to his briefcase. Then he placed a manila file with the words private stamped on it on top of the box.
“So, there’s a meteor shower in August? Since when have you been interested in astronomy?” Carter checked his desk to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.
“You know, when I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut.”
“So what happened, why didn’t you become an astronaut? You're a space case as it is.” Carter replied.
“Funny, you should’ve became a comedian.” Clay yawned. “Why do you ask about this summer, your not staying to work on the Allosaurus?”
“Well, actually no,” Carter said with a smile on his face, “I was hoping you would accompany me on a short expedition.”
Clay looked at Carter with confusion.
“Now, I know this is short notice, but I really need you to come with me.”
“Wait a minute, a short expedition, where?”
Carter glanced at the open door, then looked back at Clay and grinned, “Sorna.”
3/26/2003 12:27:50 PM
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