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JP X Factor 13
By drucifer67
Ian awoke with a remarkably clear head. The lights, which were controlled from a panel somewhere outside the room, had been turned on, indicating it was at least 9:00 am. His captors were nothing if not prompt.
He decided that now, while his mind was under control, was the time to begin formulating some sort of plan. There was no way of knowing when his thought process might disintegrate again, so he resolved to go straight to work.
First things first, we eat, he thought.
He struggled to force out the idea of food. It wouldn't serve him to focus on eating now, while there was nothing he could do about it, and if he let those thoughts intrude in any way, he was sure they would soon take over altogether.
What to do, then, was the question. There were no windows. There were no weapons. The room had only one door, and a card reader on the wall controlled it—
The ghost of an idea had begun to form in his mind, but it was shattered by what he saw on the concrete floor.
It was a wad of paper, what looked like paper towel, not more than five inches wide and five inches across. It hadn't been there when the lights clicked off the night before—even in his muddled state, he was certain that he would have noticed. He stared at the strange new arrival uncertainly, not even sure if he could trust that it was actually there.
He lifted himself up from the bunk, surprised at how shaky his legs had become. He crossed to the doorway and knelt there, studying the simple, crumpled piece of napkin. Curiosity took over, and he reached down, carefully unfolding the edges of the paper towel to reveal its contents.
Inside the napkin were two pieces of dry toast.
At first, he was too surprised to act, but after a moment he carefully scooped up the odd little treasure and started back toward his bunk.
Then he froze. Looking back over his shoulder, he noted the position of the camera. He walked back to the wall and pressed himself against it, making sure he was out of the camera's perpetually watchful eye.
He opened the napkin again and stared at the two simple pieces of toast inside. "The loaves and the fishes," he whispered softly. He took one piece and bit into it gingerly, not sure what to expect. It was dry, and difficult to chew, but with a modest effort he managed to get the first bite down.
It was good—toast had never tasted better. All coherent thought dissolved as his ravenous appetite took control, and he stuffed the remainder of the first piece into his mouth all at once. He chewed madly, grateful for the taste of food once again, and grateful to the unseen and unknown benefactor who had taken pity and left this secret gift.
Then he froze. It suddenly occurred to him that this was just too good to be true. Who would have left food for him this way, and why?
The idea that he was being poisoned crossed his mind, but he dismissed it out of hand. Given the circumstances, such a subtle approach wouldn't be necessary—there were hundreds of ways to kill a person, and poisoned toast seemed a bit too complicated in this case.
Even if the food had been tainted, Ian decided, it would be better to die eating it than to die from not eating at all. He snatched up the remaining slice of toast and devoured it in three quick bites.
As he finished, he carefully balled up the napkin and tucked it into his pants pocket, hiding the evidence.
Lex woke to sunlight, strikingly orange and piercingly bright, shining through the breaks in the jungle canopy. The smell of the jungle, the dampness and the stink of rotting wood, was everywhere. Something else was there, as well, and once her mind came fully awake, she realized that what she smelled was smoke.
She looked around, trying to determine the source. She was unsure whether a fire would spread far in such a dank environment, but she wanted to know how bad the situation was and what might need to be done about it.
In a clearing, not far from the tree she had slept in, she saw the source of the smoke. Rick, Carlisle, and Don Markinson were sitting on a fallen log, talking among themselves. Ramirez appeared from the edge of the forest, carrying a small handful of dry twigs. Lex laughed a little at herself. It seemed the greater danger wasn't from the fire, but from the cook who was using it. She was very afraid to sample his work.
She climbed down from the tree and called to Alan. When he didn't respond, she carefully climbed up his tree, using the vines on its trunk as a makeshift ladder.
Alan Grant was not in the tree.
She clambered down quickly and crossed the clearing to the campfire.
"Good morning," Carlisle said amiably.
"Has anyone seen Dr. Grant?" she asked nervously.
"I'm sure he's okay," Carlisle answered. "After all, he's the dino expert, right?"
"He's in the jungle over there," Rick said, pointing. "Taking care of his morning duties, I think."
Lex grimaced a little. "Morning duties," she echoed, quite certain that she could have gone the rest of her life without the mental image Rick had just conjured for her.
"Sit down, have some breakfast," Ramirez said. "Rick's not a bad cook, for a white guy."
Lex studied the scene: Rick sat on his haunches a few inches from the fire, holding a sturdy-looking stick that came to a fork at one end. In the fork of the stick was a can of the rations supplied to them by Wallace and his team at InGen. The contents of the can bubbled around the edges in a way that reminded Lex of a witch's cauldron.
"Maybe in a minute," she said politely, and started off to find Alan in the direction Rick had indicated.
"I'm sure he can handle that by himself, honey," Ramirez said, smiling, showing teeth like a predator. "Come sit down and have some breakfast with me."
Lex spared him a quick warning look and continued toward the forest. "Dr. Grant?"
Grant didn't answer. She moved a little more quickly, certain that he had been set upon by velociraptors, or perhaps something worse—
"Be there in a minute, Lex," Grant called, stopping her in her tracks. She stood there, taking in several great gulps of air.
"Okay," she finally managed, in a voice much weaker than she had intended. She turned and took a few steps back toward the camp.
The four men were staring at her, smiling. Markinson laughed out loud.
She stopped again, folding her arms across her chest.
"You decide he didn't need any help?" Carlisle called out, sending the others into gales of laughter.
Lex had often heard of people "seeing red" when they were angry, but it had never actually happened to her until now. A thin cloud of pale crimson flooded her vision. She had never been so furious.
Before she could concoct a sharp retort, she heard Alan moving through the brush, coming up behind her.
"Have you eaten?" he asked conversationally, smiling just a little. Then he spotted the small fire that Rick and his people had built, and the smile disappeared.
"Hey!" he called out, "Put that fire out! Now!"
"What?" Rick shouted back.
Grant broke into a sprint and rushed toward the clearing, and Lex followed. "Put it out! Douse the fire, now!"
Carlisle stood and met Grant as he arrived at the campsite. "Look, doctor, I've had just about enough—"
"Put the fire out," Grant insisted. "That's not a subject that's up for debate."
"We have to eat, Grant," Carlisle retorted. "Even you gotta realize that."
"This is completely unnecessary," Alan argued. "Those rations were meant to be eaten just as they are, there's no need to—"
Carlisle stepped to within inches of Alan's face. The move was so sudden that Grant was too startled to continue.
"Look, Doc," Carlisle said menacingly, "you've been making it your job to complain about every move I've made since we got here. I'm all done listening to you, have you got that? I've been in the woods my entire life. I was hunting at the age of six. Killed my first mountain lion at seven. Seven, Doc. I don't need some hot-shit professor of dinosaurology telling me where the bear shit in the buckwheat."
Grant raised a single finger, pointing at the face nearly touching his own. Before he could speak, Carlisle grabbed Alan's hand and turned it in a big, looping corkscrew motion, bending the wrist in ways nature never intended.
"You put a finger in my face again, you lose it."
Grant nodded, submitting to the angry hunter, but as he was doing so, he wrenched his hand free and took a step backward. "There's no need for violence, Mr. Carlisle," he said calmly. "We're all on the same team here."
Ramirez and Rick had come up behind Carlisle and were watching the drama unfold.
"No, Grant," Carlisle continued. "We're not on the same team. I'm on the team that wants to rescue Hammond's little spoiled grandson and collect the other half of our fee, and hopefully bag a few trophies in the process. You're on the other team, the team that wants everyone to believe Alan Grant is some kind of goddam expert, and we all ought to listen to him. You're on a team by yourself….Doc."
Lex stepped up beside Alan, her fists clenched at her sides.
"Oh," Carlisle continued, his voice loaded with contempt, "I stand corrected. You got her on your team. So now, what, you want to square off? The four of us against a stupid little rich kid and a washed-up—"
Carlisle never got to finish the sentence. Grant, it seemed, had heard enough. The cracking sound of his fist making contact with Carlisle's nose echoed through the clearing as Carlisle went down. The hunter struck the ground heavily and lay there, unbelieving.
Ramirez and Markinson leapt on Alan, wrestling him easily to the ground. They took hold of him, one by each arm, and brought him to his feet. Carlisle, recovering from the surprise attack, stood and strode purposefully toward him.
"You just messed with the wrong man," Carlisle threatened, drawing back his long, thin right arm. He swung low, his fist smashing into Alan's midsection. Alan doubled over and staggered.
But Carlisle was not about to relent. He laced his fingers together and brought the heels of his combined hands down on the back of Grant's exposed neck. Grant spilled forward and went down gracelessly.
Lex threw herself toward Carlisle, but Ramirez took hold of her arms and hauled her back. "Let's me an' you go find a place to talk," he whispered to her. "Whaddya say, honey?"
She raised her foot and thrust it behind her like a piston, hoping to sink her boot into something sensitive, but missed altogether. Ramirez tightened his grip.
Carlisle stood over Grant, breathing heavily. He shifted his weight onto his left leg, swinging his right leg back, setting up to bury his boot in Alan Grant's ribcage. Alan turned his head slightly, seeing Carlisle through a fishbowl as his vision doubled and trebled. As he watched, the mass of color that he knew to be John Lee Carlisle suddenly disappeared from view. Alan closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the ground.
"Enough!" he heard Rick shout. "Dammit, Ramirez, let her go!"
If Rick had anything more to say, Alan Grant didn't hear it; darkness swam slowly over him. He slipped to the edge of a dream, and in that murky, mysterious place at the rim of consciousness, he thought he may have heard distant thunder.
Ramirez didn't want to let the girl go. There was a good chance he could die here, on this forsaken island, and he wanted to go out with a bang. He wanted the girl for himself.
But Rick, estupido grande, was shouting at him to let her go. Well, screw Rick, right?
He thought it over carefully. Rick was in charge. And the girl was Grant's friend. But everyone else would be on his side, he was sure. Carlisle didn't like her, that was clear from what he had said only a few minutes before. And Markinson didn't seem to like anybody.
"Let her go, I said!" Rick demanded. Ramirez didn't budge.
Silence reeled out as Ramirez considered his options. Better to let the little puta go, for now. There would be another time.
A single, booming sound echoed through the jungle, accompanied by a faint tremor in the earth. After a moment, the sound repeated. Ramirez could feel it through his boots.
At the edge of the clearing, the thick foliage on the upper branches of the trees exploded outward. Tree limbs quivered and small branches fell gently to earth as the mighty predator stepped out into the open. The muscles in its powerful hind legs rippled as it prepared to lunge, while the massive head swiveled left and right, scanning the area, the eyes alert and watchful.
"Don't move!" Lex said forcefully, not aware that she was going to speak until the words were out. "It can't see us if we don't move!" Alan Grant's words, although nearly a decade old, were etched in her memory.
"Bullshit," Carlisle replied. His voice trembled. Despite his disbelief in Lex's words, however, he didn't move. His legs were frozen in place.
Rick studied Lex carefully, unsure of what to believe. Lex was certainly no expert, but their resident expert appeared to be unconscious, or nearly so. If she was wrong, someone was going to die.
The information may have come from Grant, he decided, since Lex knew him quite well. He studied her for an instant longer, then turned his attention back to the massive beast that had suddenly burst in on them.
He decided to stand his ground.
Ramirez, in terror, had released Lex and staggered backward, muttering and cursing softly in Spanish. When Lex ordered the group not to move, however, he stopped, never thinking to question whether she was right or wrong. He was too terrified to do his own thinking, so her thoughts would have to suffice.
Carlisle went down on one knee and looked over his shoulder, measuring the distance back to where his rifle lay. It was only fifteen feet or so, but he hesitated. A creature that size, with legs like those, could close the fifty-foot gap very quickly. The question was, could it cross the clearing before Carlisle could get his hands on the rifle and take aim?
The tyrannosaur stepped forward, crushing the dense undergrowth beneath its massive three-toed feet. It moved its head slowly, left to right, right to left. It seemed to know there was someone or something there, but it also seemed unable to see them.
Carlisle was beginning to think that maybe Lex had been right. The dinosaur certainly didn't seem to be able to see them. He thought of the rifle behind him, but didn't risk another look back. Better to be absolutely still.
So the group remained—Grant lying flat on his belly, with Rick and Carlisle and Markinson standing motionless around him, and Lex and Ramirez a few feet away, frozen. They stood that way, staring, all but the half-conscious Grant transfixed by the giant creature that had come to call.
The tyrannosaur stepped forward again, a single step, looking around with a keen intensity in its eyes. Its nostrils flared as it sampled the air for signs of the meal it sensed close by.
Lex stood as motionless as she could, trying to control the great heaving motions of her panicked breathing. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and she was powerless to stop it.
The massive creature took another step, its right foot coming down just a few feet in front of Carlisle. It lowered its head methodically, breathing deeply, searching. The tyrannosaur's snout came within inches of Carlisle's chest. It cocked its enormous head from side to side, listening.
Carlisle shivered and shuddered in terror. His legs grew weak and threatened to buckle. Sweat poured freely down his face.
The muscles in the Tyrannosaur's neck bulged and rippled. It lowered its great head slightly, then threw open its gaping mouth and roared. The sound was incredibly loud, more so for Carlisle than the others, and it took every ounce of his strength not to scream and run away.
The dinosaur cocked its head, sniffing again, moving its snout slowly up and down the height of Carlisle's shivering body. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.
The tyrannosaur, growing impatient with the meal that stubbornly refused to show itself, lumbered further into the clearing. It thrust its snout toward the campfire, taking in the smell of the smoke and the can of rations burning there.
Lex, seeing that the dinosaur was occupied, lowered herself carefully to the ground. Her knees had turned to jelly, and the thought of what might happen if she was caught moving no longer mattered. It was a simple choice between sitting down and falling down.
The tyrannosaur stopped, turning its head toward her. She had made hardly any sound—no sound at all, she thought—but it seemed that it had heard her all the same. It took a cautious step toward her, stopping again to study its surroundings.
Ramirez had turned to face the creature, and Lex, in her new position on the ground, could see him clearly. His eyes bulged in terror, and sweat coursed down his face and neck. Perspiration had marked great circles under the sleeves of his shirt.
He reached down, slowly and carefully, and gripped the handle of the 9mm pistol tucked into the front of his jeans.
"No!" Lex whispered fiercely.
Ramirez ignored her. Gripping the gun tightly, he cautiously slid it free from his waistband.
"NO!" Lex whispered again. "That won't kill it…you're only going to make the damn thing mad!"
As if on cue, the tyrannosaur took another step forward.
Ramirez stared vacantly as the T. Rex continued its methodical inspection of the area. Finally, sensing no more movement, it turned its attention back to the fire.
Ramirez slowly tucked the pistol back into its place.
"Good boy," Lex whispered.
From somewhere in the distance to her left, she heard what sounded like a horn playing a low, mournful note. The sound was answered by a second horn, much closer than the first, off to her right. The tyrannosaur froze in place, except for the tip of its tail, which whipped back and forth quickly. The horn blasted again, and the great predator turned its head in the direction of the sound. After a pause, the tyrannosaur leapt forward and thundered into the dense forest, following the noise. As quickly as it had begun, the ordeal was over.
Carlisle sat down hard, then slowly fell backward. He lay there, silent, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Rick knelt beside Grant, shaking him, trying to stir him awake. Lex sprinted across the clearing, shouting his name, with Ramirez following.
As she approached, Alan opened his eyes and sat up slowly. He glanced around at Lex, then Rick, then Ramirez, looking stunned and weak. He turned to see Carlisle, lying on his back, staring skyward with empty, unseeing eyes, on the verge of hyperventilating. Markinson was shaking, unsteady, holding himself up with his hands on his knees. Finally, he turned back to Lex, his brows furrowed in an expression of complete confusion.
"Did I…miss something here?"
1/23/2003 9:50:28 PM
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