They built predators in a paradise

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𝕋ℍ𝔼 door slid open with a soft hiss, and in stepped Rosita and Owen. There was no mistaking the stern set of their shoulders, the purposeful stride in their movements. They were here for one reason and one reason alone—answers. The sterile, fluorescent-lit control room felt suffocating, filled with the hum of machines and the sterile smell of antiseptic. It was a space designed for control, but there was no controlling what had happened out there.

The security guard's voice cut through the tense air. "I need to see a badge. Sir, Miss, I need to see a badge." His words were polite, but insistent. His gaze flickered to their unrelenting pace, trying to command them with authority.

But Owen and Rosita didn't stop. They didn't even look at him.

Owen's voice, low but cutting, broke the silence. "What the hell happened out there?"

Rosita's eyes never left the monitors. "There are thermal cameras all over that paddock. She did not just disappear." Her words were sharp, like a whip cracking in the stillness, and she pushed the guard's arm off of her with a fluid motion. Owen did the same, his body a barrier to any more interference.

The guard stammered, caught off-guard, but they had already moved past him, their focus now entirely on Claire, who stood behind a bank of screens. She turned to face them, her lips pressing into a thin line as if she had already prepared an explanation.

"It must have been some kind of a technical malfunction," Claire said, her voice tight, but Rosita wasn't buying it.

Rosita's tone was unwavering, an edge of disbelief cutting through her words. "Were you not watching? She marked up that wall as a distraction. She wanted us to think she escaped."

Claire's gaze flicked momentarily to the monitors, her fingers twitching with the desire to press the buttons, to find something—anything—that could explain it all. She moved toward Rosita, a handheld up in defence. "Hold on. We are talking about an animal here."

Owen, with a grim understanding, added, "A highly intelligent animal."

The words hung in the air, and for a moment, it felt as though time itself had frozen, each second slipping away with a breath held in suspense. Just as the tension reached its peak, the voice of Vivian, a technician stationed at one of the monitors, broke through the quiet. "400 meters to the beacon."

They all turned in unison, eyes drawn to the flashing readout on the screen, the glowing dots of approaching figures and their life meters.

Rosita's gaze was intense, her voice calm but filled with certainty. "You're going after her with non-lethals?" she asked, the weight of her words settling into the air. She knew what this meant. She had seen the results of underestimating the creature.

Owen's jaw clenched. "Non-lethals aren't going to stop her."

Mr. Masrani's voice, full of corporate detachment, spoke next. "We have $26 million invested in that asset. We can't just kill it."

Rosita turned to him, her gaze cold, an unspoken promise of something far more deadly in her eyes. "Those men are going to die."

Vivian's voice cracked the air again, a fact laid bare for all to hear: "300 meters to the beacon."

Owen, his voice low but insistent, turned to Claire. "You need to call this mission off right now."

Before Claire could respond, Lowery, wearing his signature Jurassic Park shirt, added with a hint of urgency, "They're right on top of it."

Rosita's eyes burned with an urgent intensity as she spoke, her voice a thread of steel. "Call it off right now." She didn't wait for a response, the words coming out like a command, a plea, and a warning all wrapped into one.

Claire snapped, her eyes flashing with frustration. "You are not in control here!" For a moment, the silence that followed felt unbearable, like the stillness before a storm. Rosita's eyes never left the monitors. She didn't flinch. Didn't back down. As the men on the screen reached their destination, her heartbeat faster, each passing second a thrum of impending doom.

The man who picked up what appeared to be a piece of meat with a tracker embedded in it spoke into his comm, his voice strained with an eerie calm. "Blood's not clotted yet. It's close."

Mr. Masrani, his gaze flicking to the screen, asked in confusion, "What is that?"

Owen, stepping in front of the monitors now, his face pale, his voice grim, answered. "That's her tracking implant. She clawed it out."

Claire's brow furrowed in disbelief, her gaze traveling between Owen and the monitors. "How would it know to do that?"

Before anyone could respond, Rosita's voice came again, sharp, and direct. "She remembered where they put it."

A sudden crash echoed from the monitors—trees splintering, the ground trembling as the massive, camouflaged form of the Indominus rex revealed itself with a terrifying growl. The man closest to it recoiled, his breath quickening. "It can camouflage!" he shouted in panic.

And then, chaos erupted.

The sound of gunfire echoed through the room as the men on the ground fired into the jungle, their shots futile against the invisible creature. The screens showed only flashes of movement, the horrific screech of bullets piercing the air, but it was nothing more than a blur—a blur of death. One by one, the life meters on the monitors flickered out, their steady beats replaced by the cold silence of absence.

Rosita's eyes never wavered. She stood rooted to the spot, watching as the lives were snuffed out, one by one, in real time. The screams, the panic, the confusion—all of it laid bare before her. She saw it all, felt it all, as if each life lost was a part of her own.

Owen turned suddenly, his face grim, his voice carrying the weight of an unbearable truth. "Evacuate the island."

Claire met his gaze, her lips pressed into a tight line. "We'd never reopen."

Rosita turned sharply to face her, her tone biting, cutting through the tension. "Reopening the island is the last thing about which you should worry. People are dying." She gestured toward the screen, her voice like a whip crack. "You made a genetic hybrid, raised it in captivity. She is seeing all of this for the first time."

Owen added, his voice urgent and raw, "She doesn't even know what she is. She will kill everything that moves."

The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the understanding that this was not just a fight for control over an asset—it was a fight for survival.

And then, in the quiet that settled over the room, Mr. Masrani spoke, his voice laced with an almost eerie detachment. "Do you think the animal is contemplating its own existence?"

Owen's voice was firm, unyielding. "She's learning where she fits in the food chain, and I'm not sure you want her to figure that out." His eyes locked with Claire's, his tone turning even sharper. "Now, Asset Containment can use live ammunition in an emergency situation. You have an M134 in your armoury. Put it on a chopper and smoke this thing!" Claire's glare was unwavering, her jaw clenched in defiance. "We have families here," she said with a firm, almost bitter, tone. "I'm not gonna turn this place into some kind of a war zone."

Rosita, her expression steely, responded with a cold clarity that sent a shiver down the spine of everyone in the room. "You already have."

Claire's eyes flashed with a mix of anger and frustration, and she glared at both of them, her voice rising with authority. "Mr. Grady, Miss. Malcom, if you're not gonna help, there's no reason for you to be in here."

Owen, unable to contain his fury any longer, slammed his fist onto the table, knocking Lowery's dinosaur figurines off with a harsh clatter. His temper flared, but he said nothing more, his silence speaking volumes as he stalked off, his footsteps echoing through the room.

Rosita followed, her own temper simmering beneath the surface, her gaze never leaving Claire. With a calm but forceful step, she walked up to Mr. Masrani. "We want to have a word with your people in the lab," she said, her voice sharp but composed. "That thing out there, that's no dinosaur."

Mr. Masrani said nothing, his expression unreadable, as Rosita and Owen turned and walked out of the control room. The door slid shut behind them with a soft hiss, leaving behind a silence thick with tension. The elevator ride back to the lab felt like a journey through an entirely different world, one where the weight of their words hung heavily in the air.

The elevator doors slid shut with a soft hiss, sealing them in the quiet, dimly lit space. Rosita leaned against the wall, her arms crossed, her mind racing. The hum of the elevator was the only sound, a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding outside. Owen stood opposite her, arms folded as well, but his jaw was clenched tight, his eyes distant, as though processing everything that had just happened.

Finally, it was Rosita who broke the silence. "You know, she won't listen to us," she said, her voice low but sharp. "Not Claire. Not Masrani. They're too invested in their idea of control."

Owen sighed, a long, heavy exhale, as he stared at the floor. "I don't expect them to. They've built their empire on lies, Rosita. They think they can control something they don't even understand."

She turned to face him fully, her gaze intense. "And we're supposed to just sit back and watch people die?"

Owen's eyes met hers, and there was a flicker of something—frustration, maybe even regret—before his face hardened again. "I've been watching it for years, and it's never easy. But I don't know what more we can do. We need more than just a plan. We need to stop her before she figures out how to tear this place apart."

Rosita's lips twisted into a thin line, and she pushed herself off the wall. She stood a little taller, her expression fierce, even in the face of overwhelming uncertainty. "You saw what she did out there. She's not just a creature anymore, Owen. She's evolving. And the longer we wait, the harder it's going to be to stop her."

He nodded, a quiet acknowledgment that she was right. The weight of their situation settled over them both like a heavy fog. "I know," he muttered. "But we can't do it alone. If we're going after her, we need more than just guns and muscle. We need information. We need to understand her—what she's really capable of."

Rosita's mind flashed back to the earlier moments when she saw the Indominus rex on the monitors. The way she had moved, the way she had adapted. It was terrifying, yet she couldn't help but feel a strange kind of empathy for the creature. The fear of the unknown was never something she'd taken lightly.

"Then let's get to the lab," she said, her voice now firm, determined. "We need to figure out what the hell Masrani and his team have been hiding about her creation. The more we know, the better chance we have of surviving this."

Owen gave her a sharp look, his lips curling into a half-smile. "You always know how to stay focused, don't you?"

She met his gaze, the flicker of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Someone has to, Owen. Someone has to."

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By: SilverMist707