man destroys god || i. malcolm

9

Aria woke to shouting. She groaned in annoyance. Why couldn't she ever get a decent night's sleep?

"Shut up." She mumbled quietly, almost unintelligibly. Almost.

"Good morning, Aria."

Her mind cleared at the sound of a man's voice, and she immediately regretted getting drunk the night before. Then she realized she hadn't been drunk, and she hadn't slept with some random man, and she was trapped on Dinosaur Island. She'd prefer the alternative.

"How are you feeling?" Ellie rushed to her side.

"Shit. My back hurts." Aria mumbled into her makeshift pillow.

"We've bandaged it, but I'm afraid that's all I can do until we're at a real hospital."

Aria reached around to find that her tank top — and bra— had been replaced by bandages wrapped around her entire torso. A quick thought passed through her mind about who bandaged her, who'd been there, what had been exposed. She forgot her worries as soon as she looked over at Ian Malcolm for the first time. His shirt was nearly fully unbuttoned and he was posed ridiculously. It was sexy anyway.

Aria sat up slowly, with the help of Dr. Sattler. "What's happening?" She muttered.

Hammond was talking. "Shutting down the system is the only way to guarantee wiping out everything he did. If I understand correctly, all the systems will come back on their original start-up modes correct?"

"Hold on. Shut down the systems?" Aria stood, pushing Ellie away from her. "As in, all electric fences off?"

"We've never shut down the whole system before! It may not come back at all."

"We'd get the phones back, though?" Ellie asked hopefully.

"Yes, in theory, but—"

Muldoon cut in. "What about the lysine contingency? We could put that into effect."

Aria had no idea what that meant, but based on John's reaction she could tell it was important. Clearly Ellie shared the same thoughts, and voiced it. "What's that?"

"It's absolutely out of the question." Hammond stomped away, facing the wall. He couldn't go very far, though, considering the size of the control room.

Mr. Arnold supplied the answer. "The lysine contingency - it's intended to prevent the spread of the animals in case they ever got off the island, but we could use it now. Dr. Wu inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. Animals can't manufacture the amino acid lysine. Unless they're continually supplied with lysine by us, they'll go into a coma and die."

Aria scoffed. "This Doctor Wu guy, does he have something called — not sure if you've heard of it — morals?"

She was ignored.

"How soon before they become comatose?" Ian leaned forward, speaking for the first time.

"It would be totally painless. They'd just slip into unconsciousness and die."

"How long before they slip into unconsciousness?" Ian pressed, not happy with the non-answer.

"Seven days, more or less."

Ellie threw up her hands in exasperation. "Oh, great. Oh good, clever."

Aria heard Ian's dry laugh come from behind her. "That'll — it'd be a first: man and dinosaur, dying together. John's plan."

All the while, Aria watched John Hammond, silly old John Hammond, grow more and more angry. "PEOPLE ARE DYING!"

"Yeah, your grandchildren!" Aria didn't realize she was about to speak until after the words had left her mouth. "Or maybe they're not. We don't know! They are out there, stuck in this mess that you made. This ticking time bomb of an island that you brought your own grandchildren to for a weekend getaway. Letting every damn animal out of their cages is the final nail in their coffins."