CHAPTER SIX
CODE 19
'What do you mean you mean they're in containment?' my aggravated Uncle whines at me from outside the arena, trailing behind me from outside the bars, face bloated red with anger. 'I've got an Ingen inspection handle headed to this island as we speak. I need all four of those animals bolted in to those metal thingos in the next hour.'
'They're out of action for today because of them is sick,' I snarl. 'Deal with it.'
'And who authorised this exactly?'
He stood at the gate, arms folded and flared facials raised in question as if everything around him belonged to him. He made it. He paid for it. Therefore, he owned it. No regard for how it was living, biological life with its own thoughts and feelings. He thinks the entire world revolves around that damn company.
'I did,' I tell him, though it felt laughable that I had to reiterate it out loud.
'And Owen knows about it too, huh?'
'He would respect any orders I give out.'
After Alex had brought Delta's leg to my attention this morning, I'd called for all four of them to be kept in containment in their separate pens. I had Barry, Owen's right of hand on IBRIS when I wasn't around, on babysitting duty. Or rather, fending off Ingen duty.
'Unbelievable,' Hoskins hisses to himself. He points a finger to begin barking at me, but retracts himself away in frustration.
'What do you even need them for anyway?' I ask him bitterly. 'Infrastructure inspections require them in containment.'
He pulled out a satellite phone and began punching in a number, holding it firmly to his ear.
'Alex mentioned something interesting this morning too,' I say firmly, stepping closer to him. A string of sweat peppers is hairline, anger tainting his cheeks red. 'He told me that the job the doctor did on Delta the other week was so bad, it looked like it was done on purpose. Who assigned the doctor?'
My Uncle scoffs loudly. 'What sort of horse shit...'
The phone to his ear was still ringing. I search angry eyes with my own annoyance. 'He's an animal behavioural and medicine student,' I spit. 'It's a pretty fair assessment. So let me ask you again. Who assigned the doctor?'
He points another finger at me. 'We'll be talking about this later. There's nothing more that pisses me off than being held up like this.'
Somebody on the other line must have picked up, because he's barking into the phone, stomping away as the dust on his heels kicks up behind him. 'HEY! YOU WATCH THAT TRUCK!'
'Want me to take this one?' Barry asks me, gesturing towards my Uncle.
'I WANT A DIRECT LINE ON THE WEST DOCK, WE'VE GOT A CARGO COMING IN!'
I shake my head. I didn't even want to know why this psychopath needed a cargo full of equipment to conduct an inspection. Probably radio equipment to televise it back to some Ingen boardroom. It wouldn't be the first time. 'Please,' I ask of him desperately, letting out a heavy breath as I watched Barry stride after him.
Owen had been missing all morning. Regrettably, we'd tried getting in contact with Claire's management, who had been absolutely no use. Owen never carried his monitor on him which made him a pain in the ass to find if he went off on other errands. Not that there was anything that could've possibly been more important than being here for when my Uncle was sniffing around the compound with a heavy Ingen presence.
'No offence but, your Uncle is a real dick,' says Alex, the sound of his angry voice still trailing through the activity amongst the grounds like spilt ink on parchment.
I shook my head in frustration, willing away the small remnants of a headache beginning to throb at my temples. 'I'd be offended if you didn't think that.'
We'd spent the remainder of the morning hiding away in the arena doing unnecessary chores, cleaning buckets, watering the plants, ranking and refilling the bark. I didn't want to be anywhere near the people that were arriving today. Owen and Barry were more than capable of handling it.
'Why hasn't Owen just fired him?' he asks, dunking a rag into a bucket of soapy water and sloshing it around.
'He's the head security representative for Ingen,' I tell him. 'Has been since well before the park opened. Masrani offered him the job.'
Alex looks confused. 'I thought Masrani owned Jurassic World?'
I slice open a bag of bark, tipping it upside down. 'He pays for Ingen to look after the park,' I grimace. 'My Uncle. The people up at the lab. Me and Owen. We're all under Ingen. He's got too many projects to run the resort on his own.'
'So you basically work for him?'
I nod. 'Technically speaking, yes.'
'Even though you're related?'
'Yep.'
He chuckles a dry laugh of disbelief. I could tell he had so many more questions about how much of an asshole he was, but the conversation of yesterday and my abundantly scarce family life still seemed to hang at the front in his mind. He presses his lips together, tucking a strand of hair away from his face.
'So he's always been around then?' he asks instead.
'I wouldn't remember,' I say. 'I was pretty young when I came to Nublar. I don't remember a great deal from before I met Owen.'
I dig a knife into the top of a new bag, slashing it open. Everything I did remember was so estranged to cohesiveness that it could have just easily been a dream I'd held onto from when I was a kid, mistaking it for reality, but I would never admit that out loud. 'Apparently after my parents died, I stayed at my Uncle's house for a while with my Aunt whilst he worked, then him and my Aunt split after she left town, then we moved here.'
'Just you two?'
I shrug. 'Yep.'
'You've gone with him though to the mainland, right?'
I knew it would come up. I smother the feeling of shame in my chest, shaking my head. 'Nope,' I say plainly.
We return to our cleaning in silence. I knew what he'd wanted to ask. It was a question I couldn't give myself the luxury of answering. It was better to accept where I was and why. Safer. In my bubble with Owen and the compound and the familiarity of the place and the humidity and hating Claire. My Uncle hated me, would never let me travel with him, let alone on my own, and that was that. IBRIS was not going to finish anytime soon, therefore, I would stay here. And that was okay. I threw an empty bag of bark chips aside, swiping at the sweat beads that had collected on my forehead.
'So, what do you wanna do today after all this?' I ask him, changing the subject.
Alex chews on the inside of his cheek. 'Any chance I could sit with them for a while? From a distance of course.'
After this morning, I didn't think twice of it. It was also a gateway to get everybody out of here faster. I nod. 'Sure.'
From somewhere up on the rails, A loud clanging noise ripples through the sky. It was Ben. Furiously and repetitively bringing a small rod to metal to get everyone's attention. 'CODE 19!' he cries.
A collective motion of shouting follows, the sound of hurried footsteps on metal as people above us began breaking apart and running in different directions.
A buzz sounds from my back pocket where my monitor was tucked. I reach for it, flipping it open, sunlight bouncing off of the dark blue screen. A black bubble with deep red text took up every corner.
ALL ISLA NUBLAR STAFF AND MAINTENANCE
FROM CONTROL ROOM 1
PHASE 0.5- REAL WORLD
CODE 19 ALERT
REPORTED 09:45 AT PADDOCK 11
Alex looks up to the overhead rails, squinting up at the sunlight instead of answering my question. 'Are they starting the inspection already?'
Simultaneously, I could hear quad bikes roaring to life and tearing off down the dirt road at accelerating speeds. People were running just beyond the gate. Two black vans steered quickly past. The commotion was far too urgent for my liking.
'What the hell, what the hell,' I mumble to myself.
I dropped the bag of bark I was about to empty and strode for the gate.
'Hey!' I call out.
No one answers me. Just shouting and yelling being carried across by the wind.
'CODE 19!' I hear being shouted again. Barry's voice.
Alex frowns. 'Code what?'
'They need us to send a few guys!' shouts Barry to the last of the guys hurrying down the metal staircase.
'CODE 19! CODE 19!'
'Shit,' is all I could say. Shit shit shit shit. Not now.
'Barry!' I call.
Barry turns to me, wallowing in the anger and disappointment scribbled all over his face. 'You get it too?' he asks me.
I nod vicariously, only deepening his concern. 'Sounds kinda serious,' I suggest wearily.
'I have to go and check it out,' he says, agreeing with me. 'Can you stay here? Will you manage?'
I freeze. I hadn't the faintest idea if I would. I look out to the grounds pillowing up with dust from so much movement. My Uncle and the part of his team that had arrived early were now nowhere to be seen. Vans and smaller vehicles all having torn down the road, completely out of sight. As if barely ten minutes ago, my Uncle was scalding me about how badly I'd inconvenienced whatever the hell his plans were for today.
'What the hell? Where'd they all go?' I ask Barry.
'Masrani likely called them in, being an island-wide security breach,' he curls his mouth like there was something foul under his tongue. 'I doubt they'll hang around there long if they can help it though, the way they've been carrying on about this inspection.'
'Wait wait wait,' Alex interjects panickly. 'What's a code 19?'
'Asset out of containment,' Barry tells him, shaking his head. 'These people... they never learn.'
He clips a hand held radio onto his belt, pulling a light button down over his tank top and heading for the arena gate. 'I'll be back soon. Both of you stay here, and keep an eye on those raptors. Call me if you need, okay Laura?'
'What about Owen?'
Barry ducks under the railing and jogged off for his quad, shirt flailing behind him.
'Wait, Barry! What about Owen!?' I shout, but he was out of hearing range, hopping on the back of the bike and steering off quickly out of sight, leaving us amongst the pure jungle symphony.
'Shit,' I hiss to myself, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to throw the contents of the table beside me onto the ground. Alex watched as the last of the tiny dots of cars disappeared amongst the green.
There was no way I could handle an inspection alone. I'd have a little burst of will power with Alex next to me, but not enough to fend off my Uncle and his team. A team I was almost certain was going to be bigger, sterner and relentless with the way I'd seen him carry on that mere ten minutes ago. Delta cooed softly from behind her door on the other side of the arena.
'Do you have any idea where Owen could be?' Alex asks.
I bite down on a thumbnail. 'None.'
He thought about it for a moment. 'Is there a way you can find out?'
'How does a dinosaur even get loose in this park?!' shouts Alex over the roar of my bike. 'Claire said you guys have the best structural engineers in the world!'
We were flying down the dirt path at a speed usually uncomfortable to me, palm leaves and twigs whipping us lightly in the face.
'Yeah, well, that's what Claire thinks!' I shout back, increasing the speed a little more. 'Take anything that woman says with a grain of salt!'
I felt immensely uneasy about my quick decision to leave the raptors unattended with Hoskins still hovering around the island waiting for the rest of his Ingen party, but we needed to find Owen. He and Barry were the only ones who could deal with them now. The quicker this was sorted in light of today's change in usual park weather, the better.
'Look!' I shout over the noise to Alex. 'We get a code 19 almost every few months. It just means a dinosaur has wandered into another paddock where there's people present. They just put people on alert so they know to look for it.' My gaze was fixed on the widening path tunnelling towards us.
'Why'd they let the entire park know this time then if it wasn't important?!' he shouts back.
A good point. A very good point. I hadn't denied that it sounded relatively serious to Barry.
'I don't know,' I answer back.
'Oh, great, very reassuring!'
His grip around my waist went tighter as his muscles tensed from fear. I roll my eyes, increasing the speed to as fast as I was willing to go on the narrow dirt way, sending us down a visual spiral of pure, blurry green.
When approaching the familiar scene of the wall surrounding the resort, I was surprised to see Gate 5 already open, a 4WD Mercedes rolling out and speeding off road down to a road that led off to the gyrosphere paddock, wobbling over the bumpy dirt.
The tyres on my bike skidded loudly as we stopped over the concrete, Alex still recovering his breath as I climbed off. I jog down the corridor for the door that led towards the stairs up to the control room.
A muscular security guard in a pressed navy suit stood in front of the door, looking down on me as I approached. With fumbling hands into a back pocket, I show him my security clearance badge.
He squints to read it in the dim blue light. 'Laura Hoskins,' I say. 'My co-worker Owen Grady is missing and we can't get in contact with him from our monitors at the velociraptor compound.'
He dismisses Alex and I with a look of disinterest. 'Mr Grady is unavailable for the velociraptor program today. He is on classified examination purposes for Mr. Masrani and Ms. Dearing.'
Ms. Dearing? I frown. 'What do you mean by classified examination purposes? We have our own examination inspection today for IBRIS. He knows this. So does Claire.'
'One that I believe is unaffiliated with this park, Ms. Hoskins. Unless you are here for a matter within the control room in relation to this code-19 alert, I must ask you to leave.'
I could feel my face flushing scarlet with anger. 'Are you kidding me? That's exactly what I'm here for.'
'Mr. Johnson!' calls a polite, airily British voice from down the corridor.
Zara Young approaches the three of us crowding in the staircase, sleek black hair tucked behind her ears with a pair of sunglasses. 'Laura and the intern are with me.'
The security guard gave us a look, before grunting and stepping aside. 'It's alright,' Zara says. 'We won't be needing to enter the control room.'
I shot Zara a look, only to notice her posture for the first time. Usually standing tall, striding with a coffee in one hand and device in the other, was instead clutching her handbag with both hands. I head down the steps towards her.
'I need to speak to you,' she wavers. Her eyes were bloodshot, face puffy and smeared with blotchy makeup. She'd been crying. I led her further away from the security guard, ducking around a corner.
'Is everything okay?' I ask.
Zara looks away from me, fresh tears filling her eyes. 'Laura it's, I don't even know where to start. Some terrible stuff has happened here this morning. People have been, people have lost their lives, lots of people, and there was an argument in the control room and Claire's-'
'Zara,' I soothe. 'Slow down.'
She sucks in a shaky breath, using a fingernail to clear tears away from her waterline. 'You know the new attraction Claire's been working on for months?' she whispers to me.
Alex stood behind us, shifting uncomfortably as Zara lowered her voice.
My heart skips. 'The Indominus Rex or something.'
She nods. 'Well it- it broke out of its containment this morning. Masrani made Claire ask Owen to inspect the paddock and there was a s-security malfunction and it broke loose. Owen is f-fine but, it... it slaughtered an entire ACU squad that went after it and now they have no idea where it is.'
Zara began to quietly sniffle again. I put a hand on her shaking shoulder, though I was beginning to feel unsteady myself. 'Is that all?'
She shakes her head, hands trembling. 'I've been minding Claire's nephews that came up to visit this week and t-they ran off this morning. I was on the phone and I just, one minute they were there and then they were gone. We've been trying to find them all morning, too.'
'Where's Owen now?' I ask her calmly.
'With Claire,' she says. 'Claire ran out of the control room asking for his help. I haven't heard from her since.'
I nod, hesitantly pulling Zara in for a quick hug. I wasn't usually the affectionate type with others, but she'd been alone all morning, hurrying around to fix Claire's messes in a state.
'Where did you last see them?'
Zara bit down on her bottom lip. 'At the herbivore nursery,' she says. 'I was on the phone to one of my girlfriends and I looked up and they were just gone. I don't know h- they were right in front of me. They must have sprinted off.'
'They'll turn up,' I reassure her. 'There's only so many places they could've gone to that guests have access to. Stay in the control room until Claire gets back.'
Zara's mascara-stained eyes widen. 'Laura, you're not going out there,' she panics. 'Not with a code 19.'
'I have to,' I tell her. 'I need to find Owen.'
'Laura I've already lost Claire's nephews, she would never forgive me if something happened to you.'
I resist the urge to bellow a laugh. 'I highly doubt she cares about me that much,' I say. 'We've got a situation down at the raptor paddock and I really need Owen to be there to deal with it.'
As I turned around to head back for my bike, I'd completely forgotten Alex was with me. He beamed a little nervously, awaiting some kind of instruction.
'I need you to stay with Zara until I get back,' I tell him.
'You don't want me to go with you?' he asks with concern.
I shake my head, striding for the bike and climbing onto the leather seat. 'It's not safe. Claire would kill me if I let something happen to you.'
'Because my Dad's on the Ingen board, right?'
I stopped with my hand on the ignition. Turning to face him, his nostrils were flaring angrily, jaw clenched tightly. He looked down at his shoes.
I was lost for something to say to him when Zara intervened. 'You shouldn't ride alone today, Laura,' she points out quietly.
I look at Alex once more. his angry gaze still avoiding mine. The look of someone undermined, under appreciated. I knew it well.
I'd felt it too.
'Get on,' I tell him.