Hell Bent (Jurassic World)

Chapter 6 It'll Scare The Parents

Luciana

~~~

The helicopter touches down roughly and Althea entirely leaps from the copter before anyone else.

The rest of us get out reasonably but the flight instructor flees the copter and wretches in the bushes. This happens frequently, Masrani is a reckless flyer.

Althea ignores him and revels in the sight of the paddock.

I watch her joy fondly and stay by Claire's side.

Paddock 11 is a large fortress-like structure with forty foot reinforced walls and an enormous gate at the front.

The exterior is still under construction, they're building the walls higher.

"Is he okay?" Claire asks Masrani then turns to the sick man. This is her first time flying with Masrani as the pilot. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, he's just being dramatic," Masrani assures dismissively. He watches the construction and raises an eyebrow. "Are you still building...?"

"We planned to open in May, but Asset Containment insisted we build the walls up higher. It's bigger than expected," Claire replies formally and starts the march up the steps to the overlook.

Masrani stands for a moment observing how huge the walls are, then follows Claire, Althea, and I up the steps.

"It's a good sign," he murmurs.

Claire leads us into the paddock's observation room, a large control room with computers and enormous windows overlooking the interior of the enclosure.

The supervising guard, Nick, stands at one of the touch screens, examining thermal images on consoles as they come in. Masrani takes off his sunglasses and squints at the glass.

Isla usually only comes out when Althea's here alone.

Althea quickly presses her hand to the scanner on the protective glass alcove made for her. From there she can step out into the cage at the height of Isla. The door slides open and steps in, it sliding shut behind her. The glass is soundproof so she can't hear us. She never likes to listen to the business talk.

"We hit a few speed bumps early on. It began to anticipate where the food would come from," Claire informs briskly.

"One of the handlers nearly lost an arm. The others threatened to quit if I couldn't guarantee their safety."

Claire and Masrani go to the windows and I the universal control pad.

At the moment, we can't see anything but dense jungle.

Althea is patiently waiting and calling for her.

"She's intelligent, then?" Masrani concludes.

"For a dinosaur," Claire allows.

"And that?" he questions darkly and points to one of the cracked windows.

"It tried to break the glass."

"She has a singular fixation on Althea Foster, one day Nick dropped a steer for her and she tried to break the glass to get to him," I elaborate and Masrani frowns slightly.

Thankfully the glass cuts off noise so Thea cannot hear us. She's so young and innocent that Claire and I hide the dark nature of Isla from her. She only knows what she has to and even then we embellish for her. The only reason Althea knows that Isla nearly got the arm of another handler was so she could tell the investors.

"I like her spirit," Masrani utters but he doesn't sound convinced.

In the corner of my eye, I see a rumble in the trees so I tap the control to allow noise through the glass so Mr. Masrani can hear her.

A loud growl comes from the trees as they shake when Isla moves through her makeshift forest.

Slowly the outline of the large theropod dinosaur with white skin moving through the fronds becomes clear, but Indominus Rex doesn't fully emerge. Masrani stares at her.

A shudder runs down my spine at the sight of her, she always scares me. Isla scares everyone but Althea.

"Isla!" Althea coos loudly but the dinosaur doesn't acknowledge her. When other people are here Isla rarely responds to her.

"Oh, it's white...you never told me it was white..." he observes in fearful awe.

"Think it'll scare the kids...?" Claire asks nervously.

"The kids? This'll give the parents nightmares," he responds absently his focus trained on Isla.

"Is that... good?" Claire queries in uncertainty.

"It's fantastic."

In the brush I can make out a large yellow eye watching us, Masrani sees it too.

"Can she see us?"

"They say it can sense thermal radiation, like snakes," Claire says.

"Say, I thought there were two of them," Masrani remarks upon noticing the lack of a second dinosaur. Claire nods to me and I hit the control to block sound again.

"There was a sibling in case this one didn't survive infancy," Claire replies once Althea cannot hear.

"Where's the sibling?"

"She ate it."

Althea was told Ivory got sick and died naturally, not that Isla ate her.

Masrani stares at her wide-eyed. She simply smiles nervously. He nods and glances away, a faraway look in his eye.

Outside, the Indominus Rex moves away through the jungle. Althea frowns and steps back into the observation deck.

"So the paddock is quite safe, then?"

"We have the best structural engineers in the world," Claire reassures.

"Yeah, so did Hammond," Masrani comments.

Claire doesn't respond. There is no response, we created a monster and this park could just as easily turn out like the other.

"But we have Althea, the I-Rex is attached to her and that's something Hammond didn't have: trainers," I chime in quickly and Althea beams.

"It's a good point, you should consult another trainer. There's an American Navy man here. Part of a research program one of my companies is running. Owen Grady."

Claire looks a little miffed and Althea stiffens. There is history between Althea and Owen. A weird and sad history that left Althea heartbroken. Because Claire and I look out for the girl personally we both dislike Owen.

"I know who he is," Claire says emotionless.

"His animals often try to escape. They're smart. He has to be smarter." Masrani pauses a moment before adding the crucial part. "Not to mention he has the Raptor girl, Echidna, on his side."

Claire smiles mirthlessly but Althea goes blank.

"He only thinks he's smarter," she grumbles to me and I resist smirking.

"I want you to bring him in and Echidna in. Let them inspect the paddock. Maybe they'll see something we can't."