𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐒 . ian malcolm

𝑰𝑰𝑰. ⸻ the lab

MR. HAMMOND WALKED THE FOUR OF THEM TO THE DARK LAB. The lighting was terrible, and it felt almost sinister, and Minerva thought how difficult it would be to do any work with such dim fluorescents. The lab matched the dull and gray feeling as the building entrance did. Minerva, just like the others around her, looked curiously around the room. There were few women in the lab, and many men bustling around in full-body lab scrubs.

"Good day, Henry," Hammond said to a young scientist who was fervently writing something on a page connected to a clipboard.

"Good day, sir."

Minerva looked around everywhere. She caught herself entranced by the lab. It seemed so calm and small, almost unlike a lab. She looked at everything, and although it was, in some ways, similar to her home lab, she knew that it was vastly different–at least, what they were doing in this lab–then anything she had ever been apart of.

It was surely more interesting than what she'd been testing for back home. Bacteria percentages and dairy cows and things of that nature. It was a dull moment in her career, she knew, and she liked being here. It gave her excitement, something she'd been missing for the past few months.
Minerva was looking at the petri dishes full of who knows what. The contents of this dish could be millions of years old, and she was in the same laboratory as it. The idea of this made her feel almost...energized.

"Dr. Caddel?" an unfamiliar voice said. She moved her eyes away from the small glass container. It had been Henry trying to get her attention. Minerva was afraid she had touched something she wasn't supposed to, but he smiled and began to talk with her.

"Yeah?" she said. Henry set down his clipboard and looked at her.

"I've read so many of your papers, and the experiment you ran on nature versus nurture was...you had a phenomenal take on it."

Minerva hesitated for a moment, but smiled at him when she realized she was staring. She replied quickly, "Oh, thank you. It's good to know someone's reading them." The two couldn't exactly shake hands, so they just nodded at each other and walked to the group. Minerva tried to hide the slight smirk she had. She was never recognized. Sure, people knew her name, but only because she had been apart of so many different experiments and test runs and wrote about every new observation she had. But, she never got recognized like she had just now.

Alan, Ellie, and Ian were standing in front of a machine and a synthetic looking nest of eggs. Minerva noted that Ian was staring at the other two, but looked away from them quickly when he caught her eyes. The machine was turning the eggs, Ellie observed aloud.

"Oh, perfect timing," Henry said, "I hoped they'd hatch before I had to go the boats."

Mr. Hammond shoved through the semicircle, "Henry, Henry, Henry. Why didn't you tell me? I insist on being here when they're born."

"Come on," he repeatedly whispered to the now-hatching egg. Minerva's eyes widened and she leaned closer to the hatching shell. It was a baby dinosaur, she realized.

"They imprint on the first creature they come in contact with. That helps them to trust me. I've been present for the birth of every little creature on this island," Hammond cheerfully explained.

Dr. Malcolm had a different opinion of this, and he wasn't afraid to share it. "Surely not the ones that have bred in the wild."

Henry smiled at the egg, shooting down Ian's argument with surprisingly fast intelligence. "Actually, they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There's no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park."