Before

I managed to sucker Claire into giving me a lift to the monorail, where I rode until they hit the stop at Main Street. With five minutes left until my show, I made it into the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

"And you're on in five, four, three, two.."

Three of the four shows of the day were complete. I didn't ride Mo that show, since I only took that chance during the lunch and the dinner time shows.

All I had to do was sprout the same speeches, give a child the chance to say a fact, drop the shark, and then let the audience be wowed by Mo leaping from the water and eating it.

I raised my thumb in the air, signalling to Gideon that the stands were ready to be dropped to the Underwater Observatory.

As they were lowered, my cell phone began buzzing in my pocket.

CALLER ID:
Owen Grady

I pulled off my headpiece, holding my phone up to my ear instead.

"Hey--"

"Lauren, where are you? Did you get off the monorail?" Owen spit out.

"Yeah, I just finished the show," I said, my brow furrowed, "Are you okay?"

"Get to the control room. As fast as you can. Please, Lauren."

"Okay, okay. Just tell me what's wrong," I pleaded.

"The genetically engineered dinosaur? Yeah, she broke out."

>>>

I shoved myself through the elevator doors before they were fully opened.

"Owen!" I shouted.

"Ms. I'm gonna have to see a badge," a man guarding the elevator said, his hand blocking me from exiting.

I ripped my Jurassic World ID from my belt and tossed it at him. He took one look at it and grabbed my arm to hold me back. It resulted in him getting a hook to the jaw, but it was a good effort.

"You are not authorized to be here!" he insisted, holding his jaw.

"Sue me," I said sarcastically.

With his arm at his side, I passed freely through the doorway into the control room.

"Ms.Rove, I have to advise you against harming other workers," Claire said, grinding her teeth.

"Just give me a referral and be done with it," I muttered.

Owen met me halfway, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. Feeling his relief of my safety through the tight hug, I pressed my forehead against his chest.

Pulling my head away to look up at him, I asked, "Why do you smell like coolant?"

"She attacked me. Coolant lowered my body heat-- no big deal," Owen said.

I opened my mouth to inquire more about his 'no big deal.' Keeping me from doing so, he took my hand and led me in front a desk.

Matching heartbeats for each person, eight names were on a grid that occupied the left half of the projection on the wall.

Four body cameras on the people of the ACU were projected on the right half of the wall.

"The big deal is that the Indominus escaped," A man at the computer said. His name tag read Lowery.

"How?" I asked, "Her paddock is taller than anyone other carnivores."

"Faked her escape," Owen said.

"She's four miles from the nearest attraction. An ACU squad was sent to tranq her," Mr.Masrani explained.

I narrowed my eyes at Owen. He nodded, fully understanding my lack of faith in an ACU.

Lowery, whose desk I was leaning on, tapped my shoulder. He gave a slight smile.

"Lauren, hi, you don't know who I am--"

"Lowery," I said.

His eyes almost popped from his head. Lips split, they moved up and down trying to form a word. The word he managed to say was, "How?"

"Name tag," I said, nodding to it with my head.

"Oh," he mumbled.

"Lethals should work," I said, turning my attention back to the screen.

"They're not using lethals," Lowery said.

"We have twenty six billion dollars invested in that asset, we can't just kill it," Mr.Masrani said in an obvious tone.

I twisted my head, staring at Mr.Masrani with my brow furrowed.

"Sir, with all due respect, that's a shit reason," I said, "She's capable of killing everyone in this park if the ACU fails. We should at least evacuate the island."

"Three hundred meters to the beacon," a tech woman called in warning.

Owen turned to Claire, his eyes hard as he said, "You need to call this mission off right now."

"They're right on top of it," Lowell said.

"Call it off now," Owen tried again.

Practically shaking with anger, Claire shouted, "You are not in control here!"

"You can't control that animal, Claire," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

I turned to watch the body camera of an ACU man.

Bent on his knee, he picked up a chunk of dinosaur skin from the puddle. He flipped it over. Intertwined in the muscle and skin tissue of the Indominus was a beeping tube.

"Is that her tracking implant?" I asked, my lips splitting in shock.

"She clawed it out," Owen guessed.

"How would it know to do that?" Claire gasped.

"She remembered where they put it."

"It can camouflage!" A man of the ACU screamed.

My head snapped to the other body cameras. I looked in time to see a man get squished by a dinosaur foot, successfully killing his heart monitor beeping from our ears.

The cameras weren't picking up any decent visuals of the Indominus.

Hearing was perfect. Roaring from her, panicked screaming from the Unit, bullets that were being released in a non-strategic way.

The single view of the Indominus we gained was from a man who was standing in one spot. His finger glued to the trigger, he fired at the incoming Indominus.

The last shot his body camera showed was the view of the Indominus' mouth, and the crunch of his bones.

By then, I'd have enough.

"How many more people need to die for you to realize the right thing to do?" I yelled at Claire.

"Evacuate the island!" Owen shouted.

Claire gulped, torn between two decisions. "We'd never reopen," she mumbled.

"You made a genetic hybrid, raised it in captivity-- she is seeing all of this for the first time. She does not even know what she is. She will kill anything that moves," Owen tried to explain for her to understand.

"You think the animal is contemplating its existence?" Mr.Masrani asked.

"She's learning where she fits in the fits in the food chain, and I'm not sure you want to find that out," Owen said smartly, "Now, Asset Containment can use live ammunition in an emergency station. You have an M1-34 in your armory. Put it on a chopper and smoke this thing!"

"We have families here!" Claire shouted in defense, "I'm not turning this place into war zone."

I pointed at the screen behind me, allowing her a second of silence to hear the shrieking from the ACU.

"You already have!" I growled.

Claire took a fast inhale, flipping her emotional switch back to Professional.

Purposely avoiding our agitated eyes, she calmly said, "Mr.Grady, Ms.Rove, if you're not going to help, there's no reason for you to be in here."