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Jurassic Park: X-Factor (Chapter One - Reunion)
By drucifer67
Jurassic Park: X Factor
Chapter One - Reunion
Lex held Tim’s hand tightly, partly as a result of protective instinct and partly from her own terror. Two velociraptors were in the kitchen with them, and there were no adults around to help—Dr. Grant had gone to tell Grandpa they were back safe.
Safe. The word seemed foreign and almost silly now. They were anything but safe.
She fled down the length of the big stainless-steel prep table, trying desperately to think of a way out of the kitchen, searching with her eyes and her mind for a place to hide from the rampaging dinosaurs. She motioned for Tim to follow, but he refused.
Then she saw the large steel cabinet, and her heart leapt. It was easily roomy enough for her. It had a door that slid down vertically—just the thing she needed. She had no idea whether it would be strong enough to protect her, but it would have to do. Her options were limited.
Near panic, she crawled inside. She turned to pull down the door and saw one of the raptors, staring right back at her. It lowered its head and shrieked triumphantly.
She tugged frantically at the door, but it was jammed, off its track. The raptor charged, shrieking. She knew what it did not—that it was charging at a reflection in the chrome.
The raptor struck its head against the reflective chrome and rolled over, stunned. Lex saw her opportunity and clambered out of the cabinet.
But the hunter recovered more quickly than she expected, and in a flash was pursuing Tim as he dashed toward the gaping doorway of the kitchen’s walk-in cooler. Tim limped along in an exhaustive effort to stay one step ahead of the killer, his arms flailing like a rag doll’s.
Then the raptor struck.
Lex turned to look just as the thing came down, both feet thrust forward, its great killing claws fully extended. It struck Tim in the back, its claws sinking into his flesh. Tim’s eyes widened, then rolled back in their sockets. He smacked face-first onto the floor, his blood flowing in great gushes. Lex staggered backward, screaming, screaming, there was nothing sensible to do now, it was all madness, Grandpa’s park was an insane asylum, Timmy was dead, she was next, so there was no point in trying to survive, better to just go on screaming, screaming….
…screaming into the darkness of her room.
She got her bearings immediately and switched on the bedside lamp. Warm light filled the room and began chasing away the shadows of the dream. She came slowly back to full consciousness, taking in reality the way a surfacing diver takes in air, gradually coming to the surface of sleep.
She got up and crossed to the bathroom door, then stopped. Faint remnants of the dream state spoke up and warned her of the raptor waiting in the bathroom. She cursed herself for being silly, but opened the door slowly just the same.
As she washed her hands, he studied her face in the mirror. She looked much older than she should, with heavy frown lines between her eyebrows and purple, bruise-like bags under her bloodshot eyes. Sleep had been evasive for weeks; the dream returned almost nightly now.
At first it had been simple concern. Tim was a complete fool for following Reilly off to Isla Sorna, but her passionate objections had fallen on deaf ears. Tim admired Reilly and held him in very high regard. Sometimes Lex thought he worshipped the man.
She knew why he clung to Reilly, and it infuriated her. It was their parents’ fault; if they hadn’t divorced, Timmy wouldn’t have gone seeking a father figure. He most likely would have studied paleontology—the kid was dinosaur nuts—but if he’d had a solid family background, Reilly would just have been another teacher.
She suddenly, vehemently raked the contents of the bathroom countertop onto the floor. There was a brief crash, a tinkling of broken glass, then the sound of her own sobbing. Her grandfather had bankrupted himself engineering the very animals that had probably already killed her brother. It was all too much.
“I never should have let him go,” she said, holding her head up with one hand. She was slumped forward, her elbow on the table. She held the phone in her free hand, listening to the reply.
“I could have stopped him. I’m still bigger than he is.” She paused for a moment, then continued: “What am I going to do? I’ll have to go myself. I can’t exactly hire someone else to do it. What can I do?”
She sighed and looked out the window. Across the street stood a birdbath, and two robins were perched there. As she watched, they engaged in a dispute—a pecking match over rights to the bath or worms or whatever birds disagree over. They reminded her of velociraptors. She saw those goddam things everywhere she looked.
“I don’t expect you to do anything personally,” she said. “I was hoping you knew someone who would…or you could give some advice…or at least help me put together enough information to do what I have to do.”
Several moments unraveled as she listened intently to the caller, then she spoke up, encouraged. “Don’t you have other work to --- well, I know, but --- That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. I’ll meet you there. I look forward to seeing you again, Dr. Grant.”
“The first thing I want to make clear,” Grant explained, “and the reason I wanted to meet with you in person, is this: as much as I’d like to hope for the best, there is very little chance your brother is alive.”
They were sitting in a corner booth of a relatively vacant restaurant. Neither had bothered to order anything to eat; more important business was at hand.
Lex lowered her head. “I know.”
“I also know that you think you have to try,” Grant continued. “But I’m going to do everything in my power to talk you out of it. I’m sure you remember Isla Nublar, the park site…I can tell you that Isla Sorna is much, much worse. There are fewer man-made structures in which to take cover, there are –“
“I know. I’ve read everything on it. Even Dr. Malcolm’s book.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It wasn’t half-bad, actually,” Lex conceded, “if you ignore the fact that his ego wrote most of it. The information is great, but the presentation is too smug.”
Grant leaned forward on the table and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. “Listen to me, Lex. I can’t tell you why Tim would put himself in harm’s way like this, but I can’t see any point in your trying to go and find him. Searching for one person on that island…”
“You did it.”
“Not by choice.”
“But you found that kid.”
“Yes, Lex, we found him…but it was an incredible stroke of luck. And people died. Many people. The fact is, the vast majority of people who have visited either of those sites have been killed. Don’t go, Lex.”
“I have to. Someone has to. My brother is there with that stupid Dr. Reilly---“
“Reilly?” Grant’s broke in, his eyes widening slightly.
“Yes…Dr. Reilly, the paleontologist.”
“That explains a lot, Lex. Reilly is great in the field—one of the best diggers I’ve ever known—but every reputable scientist in the community has also renounced him. He’s known for wild theories, and he’s associated himself with some unpopular ideas over the years.”
“So you’re saying he’s a flake.”
“Maybe flake is too strong a word, Lex, but the point is…his theories on the behaviors of dinosaur species have no foundation in reality. His hypotheses are unsupported by fossil evidence. In the face of real, living, breathing dinosaurs…I’m afraid his expertise is gravely limited.”
She glanced around the room, as if hoping someone would suddenly jump up holding a cardboard sign with all the answers printed on it. She wanted to know her brother was alive. If he had been killed, she wanted to know that, too. She could think of only one way to unearth the facts she so desperately needed, but Dr. Grant’s objections carried a lot of weight with her. He was, after all, the main reason so many had survived the first encounter with InGen’s nightmare creations.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Grant,” she said at last, “but I can’t let you talk me out of this.”
“I don’t know if I can bring myself to help you commit suicide, Lex. I can’t believe Tim would voluntarily go back there.”
“He’d do anything for Dr. Reilly, anything he asked. He worships him.”
“That’s not surprising…despite his flaws, Dr. Reilly is a highly educated man. He’s very good at what he does.”
“Tim says he reminds him of you.”
12/20/2002 10:58:04 AM
(Updated: 1/10/2003 2:17:05 AM)
(Updated: 1/12/2003 11:49:59 PM)
(Updated: 1/15/2003 12:56:28 PM)
(Updated: 1/15/2003 3:44:25 PM)
(Updated: 2/11/2003 3:11:48 AM)
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