Chapter Text
"So...T-7...T-7, T-7, where are youuuu~~Ahah, there you are." Ellen hummed as she rummaged through a file bin, pulling out a folder that was almost four inches thick. The folder was ready to fall apart from the girth of the contents, beaten and aged. A mere paperclip tried to hold everything together, but even that was ready to fail.
The blonde woman then moved to a nearby desk, and opened up the folder, blue eyes flicking over the content behind her thick rimmed glasses. Her feminine fingers trailed along the edges of her papers-sections marked with multi colored flaps of paper. Owen was nearby, arms crossed over his chest, veins bulging underneath his skin.
His brown eyes studied the occupied blonde woman intently. He could so easily overpower her.
So easily harm her, get out of here-this tent.
But he guessed that wasn't the wisest of ideas.
Not when this woman could apparently act as a buffer between him the and Biosyn dicks.
That-and the thought of hitting a woman wasn't the most comfortable thing.
More so because Owen himself was pretty damn sure this blonde lady was only around five feet.
That would be a dick move.
"So...genetic make up...base genome is a Utahraptor-yada, yada, you already know that. Other genetic components: Harpy Eagle, African Crowned Eagle, Harris' Hawk, three species of Vampire Bats-the Common, White Winged and Hairy...Common Raven, Fae's Viper, and the Mangrove Pit Viper." Ellen finished, fingers tilling and toiling at the aged edges, flipping to another page.
Owen's chest expanded as he breathed in, muscles tensing, a slight scowl upon his stubbled face as he took in the information, "You put viper DNA in it? The Indominus had viper. Is this thing going to go on a mass rampage towards the biggest heat source, too?"
The blonde woman's eyes flicked towards the ex-marine behind thick lenses, "I don't think you should be worried about the pits, Raptor-Boy. You should be worried about the venom."
At that, the tanned man had to do a double take in the woman's direction. His blood began to boil, gaze narrowing and hardening, jaw tensing, "It's poisonous?!"
Ellen's eyes refocused from her work, to Owen's features dark in rage, "Venomous."
Heavy, angry footsteps-and then the slam of calloused hands upon the table, "I don't give a fuck what it's called! How do you even think it's okay to make something so genetically fucked up that one bite can drop an elephant?! Why would you take something, used and designed for a super predator, and think, 'Hey, let's use it to make this dinosaur, too!', and end up making something poisonous, and think it's fucking better than the Indominus?!"
"Venomous-"
"I. Don't. Care."
For a brief moment, Ellen was silent.
"Mister Grady. Shut. The fuck. Up. I would very much like it if I spoke, and you listen, and not go on a post traumatic stress disorder rant. Do I make myself clear?" The blonde's tone was hard. Dominant. One of authority.
Owen leered upon the woman, jaw tense and hard. His veins were bulging with rage upon his trembling hands. He inhaled, "Fine."
"Good." Ellen remarked, as if she were beginning to start a board meeting. If she were scared shitless of the large man's outburst, or felt threatened, she had a damn good poker face, "There is no such proof that one bite can harm an adult African Elephant, for one. Two, he doesn't bite things willy nilly. Venom is costly and metabolically expensive to make. The most common observations were that he follows the typical pattern of most venomous snakes-the three bite strike. Are you familiar with that?"
Grady's eyes were locked upon the short woman, muscles still tense in seething rage, "No. What's that?"
He was an ex marine that used to work with dolphins, damn it. Not a herpetologist.
"I see...First bite is generally a mock. A warning. No teeth-no bite-just a rough strike of the snout. The second warning is an actual bite. But there's usually no venom injected-it's why you get people going around thinking they're immune to snake venom after they got bit, but had no reaction to the venom-because there was none in their system. The third strike is everything. Teeth, injection, typical venom reaction. Since the venom is from a viper-it acts the same reaction. You get necrotic tissue, and the formation of thrombus-blood clots." The blonde woman then cleared her throat, turning to another section, "Buuuut...with the addition of the vampire bats..."
Owen's scowl only deepened, "I'm not going to like what I'll hear, will I."
"Probably not...Normally, viper venom causes tissue destruction, as well as the formation of blood clots. The problem is..." Ellen exhaled sharply, as if anticipating a painful experience, "Vampire bats have properties within their saliva that causes anticoagulation. Which prevents the formation of thrombus."
"So...are you saying this raptor's bite can inject venom...cause skin to die...and make people bleed to death?" Grady questioned, features dark and grim.
Ellen merely nodded, "Faster than just biting a person, yes. You have to understand, even if a bite is not venomous, it is still carrying those anticoagulant properties. Bleeding and venom are the largest concerns. If we are to look for my raptor, and your pack, I would rather you be fully aware of just how potentially dangerous he is-how extremely dangerous he is."
The blonde woman then straightened herself, "I have medications. I have anticoagulants-heparin and warfarin if need be, fuck, I have aspirin if someone does develop of blood clot-but I can't give them those medications if they happen to develop a blood clot because the fucking viper venom works like it should, but then that saliva is causing them to bleed out. I can't give them a thrombolytic medication to bust that fucker up. My patients will bleed out. And I can't stop them from bleeding out-there's no medications for that. I have antivenom-but sure as fuck not much. And I don't even know if the antivenom will actually help. It's stopping the tissue from dying, but it's not stopping the bleeding. There will still be bleeding. I have nothing for that. I may not trust you, Grady, but I trust those fuckers out there even less. If they find him, more people will die. Either in the process of capturing him, or wherever the fuck they plan on taking him to get hunted. I don't want people to die. And I don't want that animal to die. It's not his fault he was made that way. It's not his fault he was never supposed to exist. I hate feeling helpless. So this is what I want to do. I want to make sure that animal is safe from this disease, and safe from whatever Biosyn has planned."
"He's smart, you know. You see that look in their eyes, and you know something's going on through their heads when they look at you. You see them working things out, in their mind. We did tests on him, Owen. Tests of cognitive development. Self awareness...It was..." The blonde shook her head, "Never mind. Not important."
At that, the ex marine briefly softened, "Sounds a bit like Blue, the way you talk about him."
But Blue wasn't a fucked up poison spitting thing.
"I suppose. Though, Mister Grady, there is one other thing you must know. T-7 is big. Big, and purple and colorful. You can't miss him unless you're blind as a bat like me. And even I can see him."
Owen's brow furrowed, "So he's big? How big?"
"Big. Like...I don't know. An Allosaurus?"
"Do you have any measurements?"
Ellen paused to look down at her papers, flipping through the records, "Uuuuuuh...Okay. Here. Height: 5.5 meters. Length: 14.6 meters...So...that's..."
"That ain't an Allosaurus, Ellen. That's a fucking Tyrannosaurus! There is no way in hell a raptor is that big!" Owen shouted, absolutely flabbergasted.
What the fuck were they feeding this thing?!
Fucking steroids!?
"Well-," The blonde paused to collect herself, "He's not that big. At least I don't think. It's not like he stayed still during measurements. And he's usually on all fours-"
"Do I even want to know why it's on all fours?"
"Because. He's big?" Ellen answered. Though her answer sounded more like a question.
Owen wasn't sure what to say. This thing sounded like another Indominus. Only fucking purple, and had venom. It sounded like this thing shouldn't even fucking exist, "You're sure this thing's base genome is a Utahraptor?"
"I designed him. I know it is. We took the base DNA and modified the gaps. We fertilized a Harpy Eagle's egg."
"...Why did you use an eagle's egg?"
Ellen blinked, "Where do you think we get eggs for fertilization? You think we pull them out our ass?"
"Well with the way you're making this thing sound, it does sound like you're pulling shit out of your ass." Owen huffed, arteries fluttering just underneath his tanned skin.
The blonde woman frowned at that, her thin lips pressing together in a single lined frown that molded into her features, "I wish I was. But I'm not. We knew what we were trying to make, but trying and assuming, predicting? What we hoped for paled compared to what we created, in all reality. Not too different from your Indominus." Ellen quieted briefly, readjusting and organizing her papers.
"When he started growing, he grew exponentially. He grew too fast-too large. We weren't sure why. It's not like we used anything in his genome that would be much larger than the park's raptors."
"Were you feeding him steroids?" The ex marine questioned, a brow raising in accusation.
Ellen shook her head, "No. Not without authorization from me, and most certainly not to my knowledge if someone was giving him steroids. I don't see why anyone would give him steroids whilst he was growing, since they would flush out of his system by the time he's ready to be hunted. Unless they wanted to increase his size swiftly and rapidly-it certainly looked like he was being given them. We even suspected he was being given steroids at first, perhaps by one of the staff. We did multiple urine tests at random. There was never any trace of steroids. But we did start thinking he had some kind of hormonal imbalance, or chromosomal mutation. Hell, for all we know he just has a pituitary tumor that's just triggering his brain to release massive amounts of growth hormone."
"So, you never tested him to see what was wrong?"
"He's too large to handle without a great margin of error for safety, so, no. We didn't realize something was that wrong until he grew far too large to properly control. And even then-Biosyn didn't care. He was shipped out. And then lost. And now we're here." The woman exhaled deeply through her nose, before closing the folder, "I don't know if whatever he has is killing him, or what. But he more than likely has underlying health problems. Or maybe he doesn't. Fuck, I don't know. I would just want him to live as viable and as peaceful-uh, natural a life as possible with the time he has. Disease and the recover mission aside. Well...Now you know what you need to know. So...What do you say? You ready, Raptor Boy?"
Owen breathed deep through his nares, calloused hands briefly forming into fists, and tightening, knuckling popping before releasing, "Fine. Yeah, let's go. Let's track Barney the purple fuckin' dinosaur and then let's find my girls."
Ellen snorted, "Ahaa-Barney. Good one."
Grady did not appear too pleased. That freak of a raptor better got have poisoned his raptors or anything...
Owen was not pleased. Not at all.
Seeing a massive ship dock upon Isla Nublar's shores just a few miles down the coast just made him feel even worse.
Like a sinking pit was planted deep in his stomach.
"...You expecting anything from Biosyn?" The ex marine questioned, Ellen pausing from spraying bug spray upon herself, the heat of the day and humidity in the air heavy. The pair trekked not too far from the base.
"No. That your DPG buddies?"
"...No."
"Maybe it's the Costa Rican government?"
Fuck if she knew. But why bring a freighter ship to an island unless it wasn't affiliated with either of the two groups? Was there a third party?
Or-Wait-
-Why was it docking near the shipwrecked cargo barge? Ellie wished she could see better, but the ship itself was too far away, "I think it might be Biosyn."
Owen pressed his lips together, which molded into a stern, serious frown. A hand moving into his bag, he pulled out a pair of binoculars, and began to spy.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
The docking ship lower the ramp, and expose its cargo hold. He saw no one outside upon the shore. They were all upon the ship.
No one was getting off.
He soon found out why.
What came out of the large, cavernous hold was an Indominus Rex, black scaled and sporting a camera upon its head.
The large black beast looked around, jagged maw gaping as it breathed deep. The ramp of the cargo hold quaked, and footprints became visible in the sandy shores.
Being made without a body.
There wasn't just one Indominus.
There was two.
Slowly, gently, fluidly, the sand seemed to morph, and form the second Indominus.
It almost looked just like her.
White, like winter.
White, but accented in gold.
Owen's binocular's almost dropped from his is trembling hands, mouth agape in building terror.
When he heard one roar, it was something he never wished to ever hear again.
He'd hoped to hell he never would.
Hell wouldn't be so merciful.
Owen was brought back to reality by the short little woman by his side, gripping a shoulder, "Owen? Owen? New plan-okay? You find your DPG buddies or your raptors, okay? Whatever first. Warn them about those things. I need to go dig and find information on those things and why they're here." If they even were from Biosyn. If they weren't? Who would they be from? Henry Wu? But that didn't entirely make sense to Ellen.
But then again, nothing made sense on this fucking island, and since Wu was a rogue scientist, God only knew who had him in their pocket...Probably a third party.
Owen blinked, and looked upon the woman, refocusing, "Right...Okay. Hey-your radio-I'll be on channel three. Contact me if you learn something or if you need help."
The short blonde woman nodded, "Alright. I will. Be safe, Grady." Good fucking thing they weren't very far from her base. It had to be fuckin' Biosyn, "And if I have any questions, I'll contact you."
Because Owen probably knew more about Indominus than her.
This was getting to be a fucking shit show.
It was hard enough when Ellen just wanted to get her fucking animal back.
But now a disease, a soldier man wanting his fucking pets back, and now murderous fucking camouflaging monsters were unleashed on the beach.
Fuck her.
She should have never accepted this job.