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Leviathans Re-Written (Act III)
By Vader
One year after Act II . . .
ACT III - PART A: REVELATION
Russell sat in his tent near the nesting grounds once again, viewing the Miasaurs and Iguanodons. It had been for as long his research routine as he could remember, and yet he never grew tired of observing these majestic animals in their natural environment.
A year had passed since he had taken that trip to Greenland. That trip, although it left him astonished and dumbfounded, was time consuming. He found himself frequently worrying about Rick's situation back in Brazil and how the doctors could possibly fix his totally mangled legs. Still, the process of witnessing the reconstructing of the prehistoric plants took his mind off the bad state of my best friend was in partially.
He had to admit that he had not entirely understood the Dr. Drakon and his son's explanation of the process. They had gone into great detail and had overwhelmed him about half way through. The gist that he got out of it was that a lot of what happened depended on computers. The powerful machines had examined and broken down the plant DNA strands, enabling the phase of cloning later on. He probably should have taken notes on everything they'd told him, but regrettably, he couldn't recall the tedious details of everything.
After the trip, Russell had returned to see Rick alive and well, only stuck to using a wheelchair to get around. Although Rick and Russell had both been disappointed by this, they certainly were very excited when they scientist began their work of taking out all the modern plants in Pangaea and replacing them with the prehistoric ones. That had been a year ago, but it seemed much shorter.
Russell took a quick sip of his ice cold water glass and looked at his watch strapped to his wrist as a droplet of sweat fell from his brow onto the face of the watch. It was nearing the end of his observation. He could have sat for hours more, enduring the heat, for nothing gave him grater satisfaction to watch them . . . except for one person. One person he could never admit to loving. Suddenly, Amy came in. She was dressed in a tank top and shorts for the hot weather. "I've been roaming around the central area," she smiled, her hair all messed up in a bundle. "I had to rustle a raptor. It came down from the tree branch above me. It nearly tore my intestines out, but I managed to get the gun from my truck and tranquilize it. It's in a cage now."
"I don't believe you," Russell shook his head, cringing at the word ‘cage'. He snapped a few s of the graceful Iguanodons.
"Check this," Amy put up her leg on the table to point out three huge claw marks just above her knee.
"Ok, fine. I believe you. Looks like you've gotten a little too self confident, Amy. You should always have a tranquilizer ready in the raptor territory."
"I wasn't looking to put raptors in cages, I was just heading through to talk to one of the other scientist stationed in the-"
"I don't really have time to discuss this. I have to go for my patrol."
"Well I'm coming with you," Amy smirked.
Russell acted annoyed, as always, and they both exited the research tent, jumped into the patrol jeep, and drove away from the nesting grounds. It was time to check on the prehistoric plants. Lately, it seemed as if the number of plants had surprisingly dwindled into a small number. The herbivores ate at a fast rate, and in the past months, the scientists were worried that perhaps something was wrong with the soil, or a disease had started. Ever since then, the patrol had been started to monitor the well-being of the plants.
As Russell and Amy drove further into the jungle, which sounded not to be as teaming with life as it had been a year ago, Russell noticed all over that there was a serious lack of plants for the dinosaurs to eat - only a few were left. Ankylosaurs chewed on the remaining plants in the area and quickly disappeared from sight. The two people gasped with dread written all over their faces.
"Russell, I don't believe this! I never thought it would become this low! I thought it would all grow back!" Amy exclaimed. Russell did his best to seem to be remaining calm.
"Hmm. This is strange. Let's go back to the library. I want to look around there." He put his vehicle in reverse, turned the jeep around as fast as possible, and then headed back to Pangaea's headquarters. Without any more talking, focusing on one goal, him and Amy reached the city at lightning speed, parking the car in a heartbeat. They ran out, through the main dome, to enter the library. At the time, only a few people were using it.
Russell ran over the far side of the section entitled "Prehistoric World". He searched rapidly for a book and finally pulled on out. "When this was first published by paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Wasn't incredibly popular, since the book she and Dr. Alan Grant wrote loomed over this one and became far more well known. Hold on one sec," he told Amy while flipping through the pages. He stopped in a moment of intesity. "Oh my God."
"What?" asked Amy? Suddenly, an alarm sounded. A voice crackled and then cleared in the speakers.
"Attention! Attention! Herds of herbivores leaving Pangaea. Heading south. All personal available go to the watch tower for help and further instruction!" the voice rung. Amy motioned for Russell to hurry up and leave. But he shook his head at her.
"I'm not going. You go. I have to go show this to Lintino. It's more devastating than you know!" Russell told her and ran off. Amy sighed and took up the gun that hung at her waist. She ran the other way.
Russell ran across the dome and into the labs, where most of the people were jumping up and rushing for their weapons. He saw Lintino right away, struck with jaw-dropping confusion, and rushed up to him. "Dr. Russell! You should be helping with keeping those herbivores in Pangaea before they all escape! The group is the largest we've ever had to deal with I can't believe they are still moving away when we have repopulated the area with the plants they love!" Lintino cried, running his finger through his hair with a groan.
"I know why! Look at this book! Look at what Dr. Sattler wrote!" Russell brought the book up, pointing to an excerpt. It read:
Prehistoric plants were less nutritious than today's, and contained far less nutrients that were needed by the dinosaurs. Adding to that, the plants back then were slower growing than today's plants, sometimes even taking an entire year to grow back after being eaten. Because of all this, the herbivores often migrated, making it their lifestyle to obtain food. More migration would mean more eating and more eating would mean more migration, and so on.
Russell nodded. "Don't you see? The prehistoric plants are not growing back fast enough and there is barely any left to feed the herbivores! They have to migrate outside of Pangaea in order to survive! Look at this." Russell bent low to one of the computers and typed in a password and looked at an overview of the area. "Look at all that red. There are only a few patches of green left - the plants. The dinosaurs fight over the remaining food causing them to be agitated. They have no choice but to migrate, Dr. Lintino! Look at what we have done! There is no way of stopping the dinosaurs now! They will be on the move 24/7 in order to keep alive! And if all the herbivores are moving, than the carnivores will follow!"
Lintino rubbed his forehead. It all made sense now, and he couldn't have felt more horrible about it. It had been such a hasty situation to do so and Drakon was so focused on the problem itself that none of the scientists bothered to take the time to investigate wether or not their idea was a good or a bad one. Suddenly, Lintino began to feel as if he were John Hammond. Another though suddenly broke into his dwelling on the current situation. "My goodness," he declared, "Dr. Drakon is coming to inspect our progress here tomorrow . . ."
ACT III - PART B: DECISION
A gleaming blue helicopter came down to a compact landing pad in the middle of the jungle. The dust around the pad was kicked up by the whirling blades as the chopper came to a full stop. The hatch opened as Dr. Drakon and his son Nathaniel exited, waving goodby to the pilot as the chopper took off once again after dropping them off. A dirt road lay ahead of them, and beside it, a huge, dead body of a Stegosaurus lay, fuming off its sickening stench as flies buzzed around it. Drakon looked at it almost as if he had lost his own child. As he moved forward, he then noticed that there were several bullet holes riddled all over the body. After soaking it all in, he was enraged. He quickly stomped over to the jeep on the opposite side of the road. He wasn't going to wait for anyone to pick him up this time. Nathaniel hopped into the automobile as well, knowing better than to talk to his father when he was this mad.
Together, they zoomed down the road. Drakon didn't think there was any excuse for that body at all. They were using guns again in Pangaea, which shouldn't have been happening after he went through the tedious process of re-inhabiting the area with the new plants. Before long, they came up to the gate that led to the research compound across the River. The place seemed deserted, which was incredibly strange. He dealt with the code machine and the gate entered, allowing them to drive over and park. Drakon rushed out and stormed into the main building of the city, his son close behind him. Inside, Dr. Lintino was sitting by himself, crouching next to a large computer monitor. Dr. Drakon came up to him and pulled him up by the collar. "What is happening? I found one of the dinosaurs killed in cold next to the landing pad!" he exclaimed.
"Sir, please, I must apologize," Lintino stuttered, trying to back a little bit away from the steaming founder of the entire Pangaea project. "But I have incredibly devastating news." He brought out the research that Russell had done earlier, looking through it with Drakon and Nathaniel close by his side. Almost immediately after delving into the information, Drakon realized how pivotal the recent events were. "They are migrating, all of them, and at enormous rate," Lintino continued, "We had to shoot them to keep them from escaping. I apologize a thousand times."
Dr. Drakon slowly sat in the chair behind him, anguish across his face. "How could this happen?" he asked. They were selfish, so selfish they made the worst mistake imaginable. "We are truly embarrassments to science. Where is everyone else, Dr?"
"They're out keeping the dinosaurs from the leaving Pangaea."
"We can't shoot them, Lintino. The dinosaurs here are living in the worst way they could be, in a way they don't deserve, because of us and our greediness to have them all for ourselves. There is only one thing to do - return them to the island. Pangaea must end."
***
Dr. Drakon and his son Nathaniel were crouched in a soft bed of yellow grass. They traveled out to the outstretches of the Pangaea area. For the past several hours, all the researches of Pangaea had been finding and caging the animals. Drakon hadn't liked making the decision, but the caging of them would only be temporary. Very soon, the dinosaurs would be returned to their place of origin - Isla Nublar. Drakon could hardly bare seeing the place he had started come to such s shocking end as it was.
Drakon ened his grip on his tranquilizer rifle. They had come into the Giganotosaurus territory, and ahead of them was the predator itself, taking a rest in the cool shade of a patch of trees in the center of the field, its lungs moving its thick, motled green skin up and down as it inhaled and exhaled. Dr. Drakon made the sign for his son not to make any noise whatsoever. After calming himself with a nice, long sigh, Drakon fired a dart in the neck in the blink of an eye. At that, the dinosaur immediately perked its head up into the air, craning itself around with an angry roar. Nathaniel shot another dart to the neck while his father reloaded. After a moment, the father shot once more. The Giganotosaurus began to sway back and forth, totter, and give a slow, low, growl. It's body gently dropped back to the ground.
After taking a moment's rest, they both entered the jungle and brought forth a large vehicle that carried a metallic cage on its back. They drove over to the Giga and lowered the crane to hover just above the sleeping animal. Nathaniel helped his father strap up the carnivore, bringing the hook on the crane down to pick up the strap. "Easy, Pop," Nathaniel whispered as he worked the controls. Drakon controlled the mechanism to bring the dinosaur into the air, swivel around, and carefully put it into the cage behind the vehicle's driver's seat.
They then both climbed out of the vehicle and walked on top of the cage. They started pulling the roof of the cage shut with a groan in order to begin locking it. There were some slits for air near the nose of the animal but there were no other wholes in he rest of the cage. The less the animal saw, the less agitated it was. Suddenly, before they could pull the top fully shut, they heard a loud noise. They turned to see two Triceratops coming towards them, at a high speed, and they were close. Very close . . .
Please tell me what you think!
Winner of Icebreaker's Fan-Fic Author of the Week Award
1/14/02 10:47:20 PM
(Updated: 1/14/02 11:51:55 PM)
(Updated: 1/14/02 11:55:54 PM)
(Updated: 1/15/02 1:08:27 AM)
(Updated: 1/15/02 1:04:00 PM)
(Updated: 1/15/02 1:55:09 PM)
(Updated: 1/15/02 1:55:53 PM)
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