"Hngh... hngh... hngh-aaaaargh! Ha—heave—!"
The massive log sprawled across the entrance of Dr. Wu's private laboratory was finally hoisted up by several men and tossed aside.
Hawkes forced the lab door open and gestured toward Dr. Wu.
Wu didn't respond. He prepared to lead the way into the interior, but his eyes caught a series of deep gouges on the steel door.
A familiar sensation...
He came to a halt, snatching the door controls from Hawkes' hand. He pulled the door nearly shut, scrutinizing the exterior panel.
Nothing unusual.
He swung the door open again, running a hand over the scratch marks on the inner side of the plate. He addressed the group:
"I think we might need a little extra protection inside."
Hawkes looked surprised. After all, given the security clearance of this lab, no dinosaur should have been able to break in from the outside. Unless, of course, something had broken out.
"Ryan, move in with me."
This time, the mercenaries took the point. They clicked on their tactical lights and shouldered their rifles, scanning the darkness for hidden threats.
"I didn't expect a doctor to be afraid of his own creations," Hawkes remarked. He seemed to have a personal grudge against Wu, and he couldn't resist a jab even while on point.
Just as the brilliant look down on the dull, the dull often harbor a special contempt for the brilliant.
Wu ignored the man's petty hobby. The animals of Jurassic World were never "just" animals; those who grew complacent were always the first to fall.
The hallway walls were covered in long, jagged furrows, causing Wu's expression to grow increasingly grim. He tried not to imagine the worst-case scenario, yet he had to remain vigilant.
No... according to the protocols, if the cryogenic systems failed to maintain stability, the failsafe should have automatically terminated all contained biological assets...
Wu stared at a set of slender scratch marks on the wall. No dinosaur would waste energy scratching walls for no reason. Unless... that thing had broken containment?
Click.
Ahead of them, Hawkes pushed open a final door, sweeping the room with his rifle. He noticed shattered glass on the floor, and as his beam followed the trail of shards, it revealed an empty containment vessel.
Wu stepped out from behind him. Looking at the vacant tank illuminated by the flashlight, he let out a heavy, defeated sigh.
"Let me guess... something was supposed to be in there?"
Hawkes' tone remained flippant, even in the face of a creature having shattered reinforced ballistic glass.
"The Scorpios rex..."
I should have terminated it personally, Wu added silently.
"If it's dangerous and it's loose, then we need to pick up the pace—"
"Don't touch that!"
Hawkes was cut off by Wu's sharp shout directed at the operative named Ryan. The man had been reaching out toward a slender, needle-like quill embedded in a desk.
Only when the man froze did Wu explain: "As the name suggests, the Scorpios rex possesses venomous quills, much like a scorpionfish."
He turned back to Hawkes. "If it has escaped, we must kill it. Otherwise, Mills can forget about ever recovering another dinosaur from this island."
For some reason, hearing this made Hawkes reconsider. "I think the boss would be very interested in a dinosaur like that."
Wu walked over to a desk littered with papers, his own handwritten notes, scattered in the chaos. "No. That creature is too unstable. I can refine the process, produce an improved version."
An improved version, like that Giganotosaurus...
He booted up the lab's backup power. The darkened monitors on the main console flickered to life. He plugged in a flash drive and began copying the data.
Ever since Hoskins met his "accident," all the hybrid experimental data had vanished along with him in the park. Consequently, Wu had to risk his own life to retrieve the culmination of his life's work.
"Alert the combat team. We must locate the Scorpios rex and kill it," Wu told them while waiting for the progress bar to fill. This was met with immediate pushback from Hawkes.
"Search an entire island for one dinosaur? You're insane."
"I am not joking." Wu's expression was flat, his tone resolute and brook no argument. He added one more thing:
"And... by now, I'm certain there is more than one."
…
"Let's go! Kenji! Move it!"
Brooklynn and the others scrambled onto the yacht as it bobbed at the dock.
"Please... let there be enough gas... just enough... Yes!"
Kenji stood at the yacht's helm, shoving the throttles forward. The engines roared, backing the vessel out of the slip and toward the open sea.
"Aunnng—"
The Ouranosaurus let out a cry that sounded strangely mournful. Ignoring the campers and Bumpy leaving the shore, the dinosaurs plunged into the water, swimming desperately after the departing boat.
Once they had enough clearance, Kenji swung the yacht around, hugging the coastline toward the penthouse complex he'd mentioned.
Darius walked to the aft deck, gripping the railing. He watched the wailing Ouranosaurus in the distance, a sense of unease gnawing at him.
"This doesn't make sense."
Unlike the previous few times, his expression was deadly serious.
"Maybe it's another one of those 'special personalities'?" Brooklynn asked, trying to lighten the mood. The others seemed relaxed, basking in the glow of their narrow escape.
"No. I'm serious. This isn't like before."
Darius turned to face them, his face clouded with a rare severity. The group's movements stiffened. They froze in place until Yasmina finally broke the silence.
"Okay... what do you think is going on?"
Darius rubbed his chin, dissecting the Ouranosaurus' behavior. "Even with the strange dinosaurs we've met, they all had corresponding behavioral patterns."
"But this is different. Those Ouranosaurus didn't have a goal. They weren't migrating, and they weren't fighting for territory... it looked more like... they were running away."
The teens began to replay the scene in their heads. The dinosaurs hadn't actually been targeting them. In fact, they only seemed to surge forward once they saw Bumpy board the boat.
"There is definitely something wrong..." Ben added, subconsciously rubbing his own chin. He'd spent more time living among the dinosaurs than anyone. "We've seen this before, haven't we?"
Darius voiced his burgeoning theory. "We've seen dinosaurs flee in a blind panic like that before. Last time... it was to escape the Indominus. I don't think a 'normal' dinosaur could drive them to that level of desperation."
Darius looked back toward the shoreline, but the Ouranosaurus were already out of sight.
"I hope I'm just overthinking this..."
If they were just running from a typical predator, that was one thing. But if it was something like the Indominus... he didn't even want to consider the possibility.