#wu ian | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pocket-lad · 7 months

Text

CH 3- Bringing Animals from a Long Time Ago Back to Life

The Beans piled into two separate grey and red Jeeps with logos on the side that read ‘Jurassic Park’. Ian ended up in the backseat next to Alan, with Adelaide stuck between them on Ian’s left shoulder. Alan was staring again, so when Adelaide happened to glance up at him, their eyes met. She hated that she looked away first. She didn’t want to appear scared, even if she still was (a little bit). Beans don’t take you seriously if you don’t stand up for yourself. Yet she couldn't force herself to look back at him.

“You have something to say?” Ian asked. Adelaide looked up, but he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Alan.

“Oh, no, I- I was just...sorry.” Alan looked embarrassed.

Adelaide tried for a smile. “He’s just trying to get under your skin,” she explained. “Don’t worry about it. I get it. I’m interesting.” She also wanted to demonstrate that she could stand up for herself and did not need Ian to defend her (even if she was grateful for it. But Alan didn’t need to know that.)

Alan returned her smile, but just then, the Jeep took off, jostling Adelaide from her spot on Ian’s shoulder. She clutched his collar with white knuckles to prevent a nasty fall. That might have been the time to climb down into Ian’s pocket so she wouldn’t get thrown clean off his shoulder, but after that whole fiasco on the helicopter, neither party was eager to bring up the idea and revive the tension so soon.

Though they weren’t going very fast (by Bean standards), the rushing wind was enough to make Adelaide's eyes water and her body shiver. She’d never been in a car with no doors or roof before. She didn’t even know they came like that. What was the point of having doors then, if they weren't needed to make the car work? Humans came up with the weirdest things.

So, Adelaide sat down and continued to hold on with all her strength. The hilly, off-road terrain was not her friend, leaving her with a number of close calls. As much as she wanted to ask about where they were going, or just look out at the new landscape, she couldn’t afford to break focus. Ian and Alan didn’t seem to want to talk anyway. They already had their own tension building for whatever reason, and Adelaide wanted to stay out of it.

When the Jeep rolled to a stop, Adelaide released her grip, stretching out her sore fingers. She heard Ellie going off about some giant leaf up in the front of the car, then saw Alan rise out of his seat. Adelaide turned to follow his line of vision, and every word, every thought that was floating around in her head disappeared. She was left speechless as she stared up at this...this animal. A dinosaur, Ian had called it? She couldn’t remember, but it was much bigger than anything she’d ever seen before, bigger than the trees. It made the Beans look small.

It moved slowly and gracefully and stood about forty feet tall, its elongated neck making up most of the height. And above all else, it was absolutely beautiful.

Alan and Ellie were out of the car before Adelaide could even blink, but she was more comfortable staying back. As awed as she was by this dinosaur, she had to respect its sheer size and power.

“I’m good to say back here, if you, um...” she said to Ian. If you want to go. Adelaide personally didn’t want to have to make a break for it when that thing decided she looked like food.

“You don’t need to worry about that one,” he said distractedly. Nothing really took Ian by surprise, so when Adelaide heard the awe in his voice, she glanced up at him. The last time he looked this impressed was when he discovered her.

Ian chuckled. “You did it. You crazy son-of-a-bitch, you did it.”

He had explained the trip to Adelaide before they left. Something about genetics and engineering and dinosaurs and a whole bunch of stuff that flew over her head, but it all boiled down to “bringing animals from a long time ago back to life”. Those animals were called dinosaurs. Adelaide didn’t know much about them, but if they were extinct, she didn’t see how it was possible to reverse that. And since Ian was doubtful, she was even more doubtful. Clearly, they were wrong.

They watched in stunned silence while Alan, Ellie, and the old man had a conversation out of earshot. Eventually, with a lot of coaxing, they all climbed back in the Jeep. Alan and Ellie seemed to have a lot to talk about, so Ian offered to move to the front seat. Not wanting to interact with another new person, Adelaide darted across the back of Ian’s neck to his right shoulder, so she didn’t have to look at the driver and the driver didn’t have to look at her.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ian said, flinching at the light movement across his skin. He hated it when she did that. He always thought she was gonna fall, but the thick, sturdy collar of his leather jacket provided more stability than she needed. Ian reached up to scratch the tingling sensation she left behind on his neck.

The rough terrain still had Adelaide clinging to Ian’s collar, but the ride was much shorter this time. She watched the dinosaur for as long as she could as they drove away, not wanting to forget the feeling it gave her when she first laid eyes on it. If the rest of the park was anything like this, they were in for a wild weekend.They stopped in front of a massive concrete building with thatched roofing. A series of steps led up to the front door, which was surrounded by a gorgeous carving of a dinosaur skeleton.

Ian hopped out of the Jeep and jogged up the stairs, bouncing Adelaide with each step. His hand reached up to cup the air around her, making sure she didn’t fall. Adelaide hated stairs.

They entered the building, and Adelaide could see that it was only partially complete. Workers painted the walls and scaffolding hung everywhere. That didn’t make the space any less impressive, though. The circular lobby was big and open, and giant skeletons hung from the ceiling. It would probably be really nice when it was completed.

Ian tended to hang behind the others to inspect their surroundings. Adelaide didn’t mind. She didn’t know what a lot of this stuff was, but it was cool to look at, and she was sure Ian would explain it to her later whether she wanted him to or not. Plus, standing in the middle of that group of humans made her feel small, even on Ian’s shoulder. He was a tall guy by Bean standards, so when she was on his shoulder, she stood at eye level for the old man and lawyer, and just below eye level for Alan and Ellie. Even then, she knew that height was an illusion. If she stood next to them on her own, she would barely come up to their ankles. So, Adelaide liked it when Ian broke off from the group. It felt like she had room to breathe.

That peace was short-lived though when Ian suddenly took off toward the stairs. He took them two at a time to catch up with the group. When he slowed down, they caught the tail end of the old man’s speech.

“So, what are you thinking?” Ellie asked Alan.

"That we're out of a job,” Alan responded.

"Don't you mean ‘extinct’?” Ian joked. Alan ignored him and Ellie smiled politely but Adelaide booed him. He sure was proud of himself for that one, judging by the look on his face, and she simply couldn’t let that slide.

Ian just nudged her with a knuckle in response, making her waver in place. She clutched his collar tighter. “Hey!” she exclaimed.

He didn’t say anything as they all made their way into another room with a big screen and some comfortable-looking plush chairs, similar to a movie theater. The old man ushered them in, and they sat down so that Ian was on the left, Ellie in the middle, and Alan on the right. Gennaro sat behind them, and Adelaide was on the shoulder between Ian and Ellie.

Adelaide glanced up at Ellie on instinct but for some reason could not force herself to look away, even when the screen started playing something. It wasn’t like she would understand the movie, anyway. Ellie was.... really pretty, if Adelaide ignored the fact that she was over one hundred feet tall. At some point, the old man told them to say hello to the screen, and the awkward look on Ellie’s face when she did so was kind of endearing.

Only when Alan and Ian leaned in to whisper to each other did Adelaide snap back into focus, lest she tumble off the front of Ian’s shoulder.

“Cloned from what? Loy extraction hasn’t recreated an intact DNA strand,” Alan said.

“Not without massive sequence gaps,” Ian agreed.

“Paleo-DNA, from what source? Where do you get a hundred-million-year-old dinosaur blood?” Ellie asked.

Adelaide’s eyes bounced back and forth between all of them, trying to extract words from those sentences that she recognized but with no luck. Gennaro shushed them. Adelaide turned around to give him a knowing look, letting him know that she too had no idea what they were talking about and would like them to stop. When his eyes locked on her, she repressed a shudder and shrugged as if to say, ‘I don’t get it either.’ Gennaro gave her an awkward smile, like he appreciated her backup but was still unsure if she was real. He returned his eyes to the screen. Hmph.

Adelaide tried to pay more attention as the movie explained the park and how it worked, but it was hard to focus. She stole glances at Ellie every now and again, unable to restrain herself. And Ian would not stop fidgeting. He was amused but not entirely convinced, and when his mind fired up so did his body. He could never sit still when he tried to work out a problem, which was usually charming, especially when Adelaide had the option of sitting elsewhere, but currently stuck on his shoulder, she wished she had a seatbelt.

Bars suddenly lowered over the giants’ laps as the theater started... moving? Did movie theaters actually move ? She’d have to ask Ian later if that was normal. Regardless, Adelaide hadn’t seen anything like this before and she let out a nervous laugh. Ian instinctively reached up to keep Adelaide from falling, but there was no need. Her grip was secure, and they weren’t moving that fast. She pushed his fingers out of the way since they blocked her view - she wanted to see what was happening.

As they left the original room and slowly passed by another room full of scientists, Adelaide wondered absentmindedly if the glass was two-way. She could see them all hard at work, but could they see her? She hoped not. Her parents always warned her that scientists were one of the worst breeds of Bean. They were really smart and curious, which meant they wanted to study and dissect borrowers and had the means to do so. She supposed Ian was technically a scientist, but everything he did was math-based and theoretical. These people in the laboratory came straight out of borrower horror stories- stark white coats, serious, focused faces, and terrifying equipment she didn’t know the purpose of.

The giants in the theater started talking genetics again, but Alan finally said a sentence that she understood, catching her attention.

“Can’t you stop these things?”

The old man explained that it’s a ride, so no , but the three giants in front all seemed to have the same idea. Alan, Ellie, and Ian lifted the bars and took off toward the room where the scientists were. Adelaide was just along for the ride, she guessed.

They entered the lab despite the old man’s protests, and the air instantly got a couple degrees colder. He greeted a young man named Henry, and they all gathered around a machine that was rotating some giant eggs. Ian pointed at one that was wiggling around. It was going to hatch!

“Oh, perfect timing,” Henry said. “I was hoping they’d hatch before I had to go back... to...the..........boat.” He trailed off as he spotted Adelaide. “Um...what - who - who is this, Mr. Hammond?” he asked the old man. Hammond. Maybe Adelaide should have asked for his name already, but there never really was a good time. Regardless, she uneasily wrapped her hand around the hilt of her knife, ready to lash out. She should have gotten in Ian’s pocket back when she first saw the scientists.

“Oh! This is, uh... Adelaide. She’ll be accompanying Dr. Malcolm.” Whatever he thought of that fact, Hammond’s voice didn’t give Adelaide any hints. “Perhaps you might be the right person to tell us what she is though,” he laughed.

“I see,” Henry said, ignoring the joke and approaching Ian and Adelaide. “Hello, Adelaide. I’m Dr. Henry Wu.” Ian faded into the background and disappeared completely from Henry’s mind as he reached for Adelaide. Adelaide threw up her hands with a short cry and Ian stepped back, also raising his hands defensively. Her parents were right. He was going to grab her and strap her down for some experiments. Ian would protect her as much as he could, but it was everyone in the room versus him. He could only last so long. Adelaide immediately started shaking, bracing for impact, but it never came. When she looked up, Henry was still standing there, hand outstretched but with a new look of surprise plastered on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just meant to shake your hand.” He paused. “May I?”

Adelaide took a second to respond and calm her hammering heart. She couldn’t tell if he was lying, and she really didn’t want to let this Henry guy anywhere near her, but it would be rude to say no, especially in front of everyone else. She needed to look in control. So, she nodded and lowered her knife.

The tension in the room was thick, and everyone held their breath as they watched the interaction unfold.

Slowly, Henry reached for her again. He eyed Ian to make sure he wouldn’t do anything (Ian could put off a menacing energy when he wanted to) before closing the gap. Gently, Henry pinched Adelaide’s outstretched hand (and forearm for that matter) between his index finger and thumb, giving it a miniscule shake that still managed to yank her shoulder out of its socket. “I must admit, you are fascinating,” Henry said as he pulled away. There was a hunger in his eyes that made Adelaide uneasy.

“Um, thanks?” she said.

Since there was no real threat of danger anymore, most of the giants’ attention was back on the now-hatched egg, and Hammond’s voice pulled Ian, Adelaide, and Henry back into focus. “I’d love to ask you some questions later, if I may.” Henry ventured.

“Sure,” Adelaide said, but she was hoping that it never came to that. It looked like she was safe for now, but she trusted Henry about as far as she could throw him. Nobody who wore a white coat like that could be trusted.

Hammond boasted about being there for every dinosaur birth, which brought them to the topic of breeding. Henry explained how all the dinosaurs were female, prompted by a series of questions from Ian. Ian clearly had more on his mind, and if Adelaide had two thousand questions, she knew Ian must have double as much.

“Put me down. I want to see it,” Adelaide said, nudging Ian’s neck with her elbow. Ian didn't move for a second, contemplating whether the argument would be worth it. He didn’t want her anywhere near the freshly hatched dinosaur, but who was he to stop her? And he needed to move around anyway, too much on his mind. So, he set her down on the ledge of the incubator, next to Hammond’s elbow, and took off, continuing to walk around.

Adelaide didn’t like that he left her on her own as soon as she was put down, but she wasn’t going to complain. She asked for this. And if Ian truly didn’t believe she was one hundred percent safe, he wouldn’t have left her side, which gave her a little confidence.

Gennaro stepped up and filled the empty space that Ian left, standing directly behind Adelaide. Nerves crept up on her, surrounded as she was and with Ian out of arm’s reach. Now she had to watch behind her, too. Head on a swivel.

Once she knew for certain that Gennaro wasn't planning to reach out and grab her, Adelaide turned her attention to the baby dinosaur. It let out an ear-piercing cry that made her jump back. Gennaro chuckled at her, and she shot him a look before she could convince herself otherwise. Luckily, he didn’t take offense.

“Scare you?” he teased.

“No,” she said defensively, but she heard him snicker.

Adelaide didn’t know what she expected, but this was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen. It was bony, slimy, and pink. It looked sickly, and if not for the razor-sharp set of teeth and intelligent eyes, Adelaide probably would have considered killing and eating this thing. She wouldn’t get that much meat from it, but it looked like an easy enough kill. That is, if she was still borrowing. Which she wasn’t. Hm.

Hammond turned to Adelaide, and she froze. “Would you like a closer look?” he asked, noticing the way she stared at it and mistaking her analysis for curiosity. He held the baby dinosaur in his hands, waiting for an answer.

“Oh, um...,” she floundered for words. She wasn’t used to being directly addressed by Beans besides Ian. Most Beans saw her as less than, as something that wasn’t good enough to speak to Humans. But now, they all waited for her to say something. “No thank you,” Adelaide mumbled. She felt close enough to the monstrosity and wanted to get no closer.

As Ian made his way around the table, he stopped by Henry. “But, uh, again, how do you know they're all female? Did someone go out into the park and, ah, lift up all the dinosaur's skirts?” Adelaide rolled her eyes, but when she saw Ellie laugh at the comment, she laughed too, though maybe a little too hard. What exactly was Adelaide laughing at? She wasn’t sure, but she knew it wasn’t Ian’s joke. She saw Ian look at her quizzically, which made her duck her head and blush.

While Henry explained something about chromosomes or hormones or something, Ian completed his circle around the table and kept going, scooping up Adelaide along the way (with a small “Hey!” coming from Adelaide.) He didn’t ferry her to his shoulder as per usual, and he sat down in a chair, keeping her cupped to his chest.

“John, the kind of control you're attempting here is, uh, it's not possible.” John Hammond. That’s his name. “ If there's one thing that the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. Expands to new places and crashes through barriers. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But... uh, well, there it is,” Ian said. Adeliade felt the vibrations of his voice through his chest.

“There it is,” John repeated. He didn’t seem very happy. Most people weren’t when Ian spoke - this was nothing new.

Great, Adelaide thought. We finally start to see some cool stuff and he’s gonna get us booted off the island. She didn’t disagree with him, though. Ian was right, just harsh.

Adelaide thought they’d move right along, but Henry asked, “You're implying that a group composed entirely of females will... breed?”

No, don’t provoke him. Please don’t provoke him.

“No, I’m simply saying that life...uh, finds a way.” Ian said.

Alan asked another question, pulling the focus off Ian.

“You’re gonna get us kicked out,” Adelaide whispered.

“This is what they’re paying me to do, Della. Ask the hard questions. I thought you, um, thought you didn’t want to be here anyway.”

Adelaide was quick on the defense. “I don’t.” But that was a lie, so after a pause: “I do,” she admitted. “I’m still nervous, obviously, and I don’t know if I can trust any of these people, but you gotta admit that all this stuff is pretty cool. I mean, extinct animals?! What other borrower can say they’ve seen a real-life dinosaur?”

“Ha, not many humans can say that either. Of course, it’s all ‘cool’ until, well, something goes terribly, uh, terribly wrong.”

“You’re such a buzzkill,” Adelaide teased. But even if Ian was a buzzkill, she trusted him with her whole heart. If he was this worried, she should be too. “You really think something bad’s gonna happen?” she asked earnestly.

“ Something will happen, that’s for sure. It’s - it’s inevitable in a system this complex. May not be today...or tomorrow, may not even be terrible, per se, but-”

“Life finds a way,” Adelaide repeated.

“Life finds a way,” Ian agreed.

He deposited her on his shoulder and with that, they were ushered out of the building with the promise of lunch. Good. Adelaide was starving.

Once they were out of the lab, she had to physically shake the bad vibes off her body, then she felt safe to whisper what she'd been thinking in Ian’s ear. “Those scientists made me feel gross. Especially Dr. Wu.”

“You and me both,” Ian said. “He's a geneticist, though. They're all - they're all insufferable... Trust me, I uh, I won’t let him anywhere near you.”

“ I’m not letting him anywhere near me either. The knife’s coming out next time.” Adelaide swung her knife around as if stabbing some invisible enemy.

Ian chuckled. He knew from experience that Adelaide could defend herself just fine, but that wouldn’t stop him from defending her until his last breath.

When they got outside, they were met with a loud, animalistic shriek. John tried to stop him, but Alan took off toward the sound, so they all aimlessly followed. As they got closer, Adelaide saw a massive paddock of some kind. Whatever was making that noise was inside, and it sounded like there were multiples of them.

They all watched as a live cow was lifted in a crane over the edge of the paddock and into its interior. Hammond explained that they were feeding “them”.

Everyone rushed up the steps to watch, and the shrieking noise became so loud that Adelaide had to plug her ears. Through the foliage, she could see the cow get absolutely shredded to bits by a few animals. Then she realized, those weren’t just any animals. They were the adult versions of that baby dinosaur she saw back in the lab.

Adelaide thought she would be able to kill the thing, but now she found that laughable. The speed with which they attacked the cow from all sides, working together to tear it apart. She wouldn’t stand a chance, even against a baby. They all watched with disgust painted across their faces, but nobody could seem to look away. The raptors left behind no trace of the cow, save for a few bones. Adelaide was no stranger to violence and blood, but this was on a whole new level, and she’d be fine if she never saw something like that again.

“They should all be destroyed.” A voice startled them, and they all turned back to see a new man approach. Adelaide stiffened in place, ready to defend herself or slip into Ian’s pocket. She didn’t miss the way the scientists stared at her back in the lab. At this rate, the whole island would know about her by the end of the weekend. She would have to be prepared for anything.

The man stepped up to them and Hammond introduced him as Robert Muldoon, a game warden from Kenya. And boy, did he sure look the part. He wore a standard khaki uniform with a big, western-style hat and some sort of holster strapped to his belt. If Adelaide had to guess, it held a gun larger than her body. Adelaide did not mess with guns.

Muldoon’s stance was casual enough, but he emanated an intensity that said he was ready to pounce at any moment, ready for action.

Muldoon eyed everyone in the group, including Adelaide. She felt her breath catch in her throat as their eyes met, but his just kept moving on. If he was shocked to see her there, he didn’t show it. Alan instantly walked over, filled to the brim with questions for Muldoon. He answered them to Alan’s satisfaction, and from what Adelaide gathered, these dinosaurs were called “raptors”, and they were incredibly fast, strong, and intelligent.

“That one, when she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out. That’s why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came,” Muldoon explained. He addressed everyone when he spoke, including Adelaide.

“But the fences are electrified though, right?” Ellie asked.

“That’s right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses systematically. They remember...”

Muldoon caught Adelaide staring. “You’re a tiny, right?” he asked casually.

Adelaide sputtered. That wasn’t what she called herself, but he said the word with such confidence, such familiarity. She glanced up at Ian to see if he was hearing what she was hearing. Though it was hard to tell from the angle, his expression almost certainly said that he was also shocked by Muldoon’s remark. “Uh-”

“Yeah, I know about your lot. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me,” Muldoon said.

Adelaide blinked rapidly as if to clear away her clouded thoughts. His words only increased her confusion, but his eyes were kind. Those were eyes she could make friends with, unlike Henry’s.

Just then, the harness that previously held the cow lifted back into the air. It was covered in blood and guts and had completely fallen apart. She felt Ian let out a small sigh underneath her. He was not happy with this place, or the way he was being ignored, and Adelaide figured they were all going to hear about it soon.

John jumped in. “Yes, well, who’s hungry?”

Adelaide certainly wasn’t. Her thoughts were too preoccupied to even think about eating now. For one, she wondered about Muldoon. He didn’t stare, he didn’t gawk, he didn’t need an explanation of her existence. He treated her like a normal person. Adelaide really appreciated that, but she also wondered why. He had obviously seen a borrower before. In that case, she’d have loved to know how that went down, particularly for her own safety, but also out of curiosity. Or maybe he just minded his own god damn business. Either way, Adelaide found herself hoping she could talk to him more later. That in itself was something to dissect, since she’d never felt that way about a giant before.

More importantly though, Adelaide wondered about the raptors. She remembered the cold, snake-like eyes of the baby she encountered. She recalled the methodical yet vicious way they mutilated that cow. They would make short work out of her. Suddenly, it felt like electric fences were not enough. If literal giants found themselves scared of these raptors, if they were that dangerous, what was Adelaide supposed to think? Muldoon was right - they should be destroyed.

Adelaide shivered despite the hot, sticky weather. No, she wasn’t hungry at all. Rather, she felt quite sick, and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to stay on the island anymore.

#jurassic park #ian malcolm #g/t #giant/tiny #jurassic park g/t #in which we meet Muldoon and Dr. Henry Wu #I actually like Wu but he just kinda turned out This Way(TM) for the sake of the story #TW: Very mild gore

11 notes · View notes