Isla Nublar, Costa Rica
(JJ)
Little Bear, Loni, and I left the Challenger on the LCU, dubbed the Malone. Like the Challenger, we retrofitted the Malone. It was smaller than its military counterparts. I wish I could describe the feelings churning in me. To know that somewhere on this island lay my father's bones.
“So, this the place that Dr. Guy wrote about?” Little Bear asked.
“Isla Nublar site of Jurassic Park. Never thought I’d come here.” I admitted to him. “My old man died here. Did I ever tell you that?”
He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I thought you said your old man was a Game Warden?”
I nodded. “For John Hammond's Wildlife Preserve in Kenya, then he was transferred to be head of security here.”
“My condolences. If you want to stay behind, I’d understand,” He said, placing his hand on my shoulder. Little Bear was a good person.
“I’m good. Truthfully, I barely remember him. He wasn’t a terrible father, but he was a workaholic. I barely knew him. Come on Saddle up.”
The old East dock was in sight and was getting closer. It was a small utility dock that could be used for small boats exiting or entering the island. The dock itself was unusable, so the Malone rolled up onto the shore near it. The ramp was lowered and drove the ATV onto the beach. We were double-checking our supplies when the LCU operator called us on our radio.
“Mr. Muldoon, we’re picking up a distress call on. Should I patch it in?”
“Copy that, let’s hear it.”
“This is Maria Sullivan. If anyone is receiving this signal, we need help. Send Rescue immediately.” She rattled off the coordinates for the island before the message repeated.
“Why didn’t we receive this message before landfall? Over.” I asked.
“Signal won’t go farther than the beach. I reckon they used a frequency for the island only. Over. If it’s just a bunch of kids, they probably didn’t know what they were doing. Over”
“Roger. Keep the engine hot. We won’t belong. Over” I ordered. “As far as I know, the only place to send out a message would be the control room in the visitor's center. The access road over there should lead us to it. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous this place is, safeties off.”
LB and Loni nodded before getting into the ATV. I jumped into the driver’s seat and followed the access road. The jungle had reclaimed the road, but I could see enough of the outline to follow.
I had been driving for a while when we came upon a massive gate with the sign Jurassic Park in red and yellow lettering. I took it all in for a minute before driving past the two large doors that had been left ajar.
The Visitor center, like everything, was being reclaimed by the jungle, but even so, it was a sight to behold. The exterior of the Visitor’s Center appeared to be concrete. They lined the front with tinted glass windows separated by columns and three rotundas. It gave the domes the appearance of thatched roofing. They lined the portion of the roof surrounding the rotunda domes with a balustrade. A stairway led up to the two tall doors of the entrance, surrounded by decorative plants and fountains on either side. Surrounding the door frame on three sides was a relief made to give the appearance of rock holding several fossilized dinosaurs.
Vegetation crawled up the walls of the rotundas and over the tinted windows, some of which were broken. Despite the grandeur of the facility, it looked run-down and sad. The broken palace of an unrealized dream.
I stopped the ATV at the foot of the steps to the visitor center. The main hall to the visitor center had a dome partially lined with glass and a high ceiling. The doors to the Visitor Center, which were double-hinged to swing both inwards and outward, had been left open like a gaping maw.
I exited the ATV and circled round to the back, pulling out my AR-15. For this mission especially I modified it with a 40 MM Under Barrel Grenade Launcher. Loni was a fan of the P90 and was her weapon of choice. LB liked shotguns. For this mission, he chose his SPAS-12 with a folding stock. Once we were armed and ready, we proceeded into the main lobby of the building.
Once inside, my eyes landed on the remains of what must have been full-sized skeletons of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The other skeleton was too badly damaged for me to tell what it was. A round staircase wound around the fossil replicas leading up to the second floor. We climbed the staircase to the second floor and followed a hallway to a door marked Laboratory.
The laboratory was a single room dedicated to the process that produced the park's dinosaurs. I saw computers, refrigeration units, embryo storage units, incubators, and other assorted lab equipment. An airlock, which was no longer operational, quarantined this cleanroom. We passed through the airlock with ease. The lab was still a sight to see, but it was not why we were here.
We passed through a door at the other end of the Lab marked Hatchery. This was where fertilized eggs, were placed in incubation tables. Each table had Mitsubishi Move master RV-M2s, some of which were still automatically rotating the rotten or nonexistent eggs. All of this we took in a moment before the stench hit us full in the face. Rotten eggs! The smell was so overpowering It took all my might not to throw up. We decided not to linger here and instead ran for the door we could see at the other end of the room.
The control room was thankfully on the other side. The Airlock that separated the Hatchery from the Control room was in slightly better condition than the other one. Meaning the stench of the eggs didn’t follow us once we were inside. The interior of the room was large and consisted of several tables. Each table had roughly 3 computers on them and a large projection screen in the center of the room. The first thing we noticed in the room was a decaying smell.
We followed the smell to the remains of a corpse. It had once been human. The face was gone and most of it had been eaten. With no sign of other corpses, we hoped that meant some of the others had survived. The second thing we noticed was this facility had power. Most of the lights in the building had burned out and several of the monitors had faded pixels, making the information on them harder to read.
We found the communication station and turned off the distress call. No point leaving it on. We found the security terminal next and began flipping through the feeds, hoping to find something. We stopped on the feed of some sort of storage facility, or maybe a bunker. I could clearly see a makeshift bed of blankets and sleeping on said bed was Maria Sullivan. She looked malnourished and there were signs of healing cuts and bruises, but other than that, she was intact. The Monitor read, Main Bunker - Sector 01, Camera 1D. We turned the control room upside down until we found a map of the facility and located the bunker. The map revealed a door from the control room led down into the Emergency Bunker.
We wasted no time hurrying over to the door and descending a flight of stairs to the bunker. We weren’t being quiet about it. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I came face to face with the Muzzle of an M16. Maria Sullivan stood there, a wild look in her eyes. Behind her was a gun safe with more weapons.
“Ms. Sullivan. That rifle is old and dirty. If you fire, there’s a good chance it’ll explode.” I said in the calmest voice I could muster.
“Who are you?” Her hands were shaking. She was making me nervous.
“I’m Joshua Jacob Muldoon. Everyone calls me JJ. I run Soaring Star Rescue. Your parents sent me to bring you home.”
The moment she processed my words, her relief was instant. She dropped the rifle and fell into Loni’s waiting arms. She wept for what felt like forever. Inspecting the bunker, there were open cans of various foods wrappers from candies and chips. She’d made it. She clear stretched out her supplies. Upon closer inspection, it was clear despite her best efforts she’d run out of food. If we hadn’t arrived when we did, she might have starved.
“Ms. Sullivan, Maria, can you tell us what happened?” I asked kneeling down next to her.
She nodded her head. “We never saw it coming.”
