TresCom Forums

FOREWARD

My favorite franchise of all time remains, to this day, the Jurassic Park film franchise. Never have I experienced a series that conveys awe, terror and adventure so flawlessly together than Micheal Crichton's masterpiece novels or Steven Spielberg's phenomenal motion picture adaptions. Naturally, experiencing the adventure first-had via video game would be a treat to me. That's why I was so enthralled when I first discovered 1998's "Jurassic Park: Trespasser". While my discovery was ten years late, I was nonetheless drawn in by the innovative - if somewhat janky - gameplay and immersed in the experience that Alan Grant and the others went through in the written adventure.

But I wanted more. Upon completion of the game, I began hunting for mods to further extend my enjoyment. Early on, I discovered TresCom, a website dedicated to the preservation and continuing enjoyment of the generally forgotten game, where many modifications were hosted. One mod in particular captured my attention - the unreleased Jurassic Park: Dark Secrets. JPDS vowed to take the game even further, adding in survival elements and building on the open-world concept of the original game, while delivering a brand-new story on the side.

While JPDS was never completed, the release of the first third of the mod nonetheless went on to become the inspiration for my very own project. The sheer scope of what the JPDS team had accomplished made me want to create and expand upon the series in my own way, eventually leading to the creation of my own Return to Jurassic Park mod. There was, however, one aspect of JPDS that never saw the light of day - the thoroughly thought out story. Through many a late-night conversation with the mod's mastermind, Draconisaurus, I was able to gather information as to what had originally been intended for the story. Suffice to say, it got me hooked as ever.

So it is without further ado that I present my own interpretation of the story, based mostly upon what Draco told me with a bit of creative liberty taken. All of my thanks are extended to the TresCom forum and the JPDS team for the effort they put into their creation, as well as Micheal Crichton and Steven Spielberg for creating the foundations for all of us Trespassers to build upon.



JURASSIC PARK
Dark Secrets



“The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.”
– Herodotus

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
– Niccoló Machiavelli

“If there is one thing that the history of evolution has taught us, it is that life cannot be contained. Life breaks free, it expands, it crashes through barriers - painfully, and maybe even dangerously...life finds a way.”
– Ian Malcolm



INTRODUCTION
“A RACE BOUND TO FAIL”

Mankind has forever been a dangerously competitive and infinitely greedy species, constantly trying to keep one step ahead of his competitors while still making some form of profit. One man cannot look to another and openly admit that he is lesser than the other without some pang of frustration directed towards the latter. Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have fought from petty squabbles to all-out war over the ownership of technological advances, completely forgetting or often just ignoring the consequences of each passed conflict for the sake of their own good. History has proven time and time again that the wars waged over a neighbour’s somewhat superior resources or advances have had deadly and often long-lasting consequences that ultimately far outweigh the prizes won.

Yet to this day, mankind still consistently fails to grasp, hold on to and look back on the devastation of their actions, thinking that instead they can avoid what the others in the past have done wrong and in turn improve upon them without setbacks or failures. Such a thing as failure is inevitable, though, and even in the wake of such a defeat many will often deem their most recent but somewhat more successful failure a success. However, to reach a state of success cannot be achieved without much greater consequences due to the losses previously encountered, and today much of this work relies on the powerful and often error-free processing of computers, calculators and advanced scientific instruments to ‘prevent’ such failures. It is, naturally, that we people are slowly coming to blame man-made machines from humanity’s faults to take the blame off of ourselves when such a situation occurs.

The Chernobyl disaster is an example of these consequences and the poor reactions of those involved. By 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine was considered a breakthrough in science and was one of the greatest marvels of engineering at the time, although it still had many tests to be run before it could become fully operational during all times due to the recent initiative to use nuclear power. It was during a test sequence that computers reported a power surge, sending much more power than manageable to the turbines in the plant and ultimately causing the destruction of the plant on the twenty-sixth of April. Such a small, unaccounted-for error in an unstable technology at the time caused massive radiation explosions that spread clouds over nearly half of Europe, the deaths of thirty-one people, and countless cases of cancer and physical deformities which are still being reported to this day.

Although this disaster is very well known, the inner workings of the power plant’s destruction are usually attributed to the mistakes of the workers that day. What most people often ignore is that those workers were completely dependent on the technology operating the plant for them. With such a breakthrough and experimental technology as nuclear production, it would be assumed that we would already understand what we were building and what the consequences of failure would be, as well as have measures in place should something go awry. But the even to the scientists who worked to develop this technology, it was all uncharted territory. Bugs in the code and errors in computer systems were tested, ironed out, found, and tested again, with the long-term consequences all but ignored for an immediate and profitable solution. The computer systems were largely untested and new, bringing in room for even more errors that the developers simply could not have ironed out with the resources and experience they were given – nobody in their position could have done so without experiencing their errors firsthand.

So it is and forever it will be that no technology can ever be without some potential for catastrophic error, yet humans are constantly ignorant of the fact that more trouble can potentially be caused than good will ever be done using our faulty trail-and-error methods of testing and design. Even in the twenty-first century, there is still much speculation and guesswork done during the development of new technologies, and more than two-thirds of them fail to ever produce any real beneficial outcome, instead often polluting the environment, compromising a lab, or even something so small as making simple tasks more difficult for a household family due to a faulty new-age product they purchased.

As time goes on, the race to develop these new technologies gains speed at an alarming rate. Day by day, all but the largest corporations struggle to maintain a lead over their competition by developing, modifying and releasing while innovative new products while in the process spending the minimal amount of time, money and research to bring these things to fruition. Brands and versions change in slight but highly marketed ways to the point at which these new products are barely different from the previous version, yet are still marketed at higher prices, purchased by the same groups who purchased the last incarnation, and updated constantly due to small bugs that may be present in the latest release. With such a hasty and constantly changing race going on involving products being pushed out so quickly, errors in the previous version are often retained, as well as new ones that are created due to lack of testing or a slight but heavily altering modification. In the end, the only thing these corporations are truly dedicated to is producing new products quickly to bring in the maximum revenue, and then spend as little amount of that as possible to develop more before the competition can, creating an endless cycle of build, sell, fund, repeat. But yet, through laziness, ignorance or, in a lesser sense, simple mismanagement, the little problems build up until the technology is rendered broken and is completely abandoned.

It is because of this selfishness that the technological race continues to gain speed and ferocity with every passing day. Companies fall, rise, and fall again. Fads come and go, and grand ideas fall to ruins without the funding. In a world like this, the independent companies are often the ones most neglected or altogether forgotten. When a Wal-Mart is planned and constructed in a small suburban town, it becomes the center of daily needs, selling countless different products and versions of them. This, in turn, causes smaller, independently-owned businesses to lose customers and inevitably close down. Large corporations will always annex the small and wipe out competition, as the Romans did in their glory days to the smaller states of Europe, plundering and taking all income for themselves. It is through these simple but effective methods like the conquest of the lesser that the large come out on top. It is only due to the aforementioned technology race and constant change in business workings that the leaders are often thrown into decade-long ruts, only to rise back up again with some new breakthrough which innovates and defeats the competition.

An example of this behavior is clear in the competition between massive business rivals Apple and Microsoft in the late 1990’s and still occurring long beyond. Microsoft’s development of the Windows operating system put them miles in front of Apple, their main competitor at the time, with support for a much more user-friendly interface and ease of access. Apple’s Macintosh operating system was uncommon to find on computers for many years, often considered a lesser used version of Windows, and they were losing money fast. However, their quick and timely development of the iPod personal music device quickly gained the public’s attention and skyrocketed them ahead of Microsoft, who were now losing customers to Apple’s constantly developing and frequently releasing operating systems and portable devices, even though each release came with many bugs in every version. Eventually, as with all conflicts like this, Microsoft will either take the unlikely route of bankruptcy, or develop a new product to outdo Apple’s and bring them ahead, leaving them in the dust once more. Such is competition, and such it will forever remain.

It was this competition, along with flaws in the technology and the rush to get ahead that brought about the downfall and bankruptcy of the initially massively successful International Genetic Technologies, Inc., between the years 1993 to 1998. InGen’s new technologies were newfound and hazardously prepared, having been painstakingly crafted since as early as 1980, but still riddled with problems both large and small that upper management simply chose to ignore for the sake of time and money. It was when company CEO John Parker Hammond attempted to rush in an inspection of his incomplete and extremely advanced facilities on a remote Costa Rican island that disaster struck. Hammond’s testimony stated that a disgruntled employee had shut off the island’s security systems in an attempt to smuggle some of the new technology off the island for another company were unconvincing to the jury, given the damage done. During the two-day incident, several people were killed and the island’s facilities completely abandoned. In the years that followed, InGen attempted but failed to reclaim its position, and eventually they faced bankruptcy while the company disappeared like thousands that had gone before it.

The InGen Incident also brought with it much media controversy in the following years – supposedly the products and consequences of the disaster. In 1997, public reports of a massive creature romping through San Diego, California, as well as apparent sightings of monsters on the shores of the long-abandoned Isla Sorna, Costa Rica, attracted tourists from across the globe, hoping to catch glimpses of these urban legends that old John Hammond and InGen had supposedly created. Nobody was certain of what exactly they had created there, though many felt that they had left a scar permanently on the world.

However, as with all struggling businesses, those who vainly attempted to remain an operational section and contributor of the severely crippled InGen Corporation were constantly seeking to improve and sell InGen’s original technology, whether it be a globally-recognized new breakthrough or a big sale in the underground market. So it was that the hidden InGen facility on Isla Sorna remained working even during the demise of the company itself, constantly building, testing, and discarding their always evolving, extremely volatile technology. And it was because of their greedy and selfish want to expand, conquer and control that the events of late November, 1997 took place, resulting in the final breaths of InGen being extinguished, as well as that of a second controversial corporation that few of the remaining InGen staff ever suspected were manipulating their every move. The consequences for those involved were great, and the fallout their failure resulted in strongly affected the general public for many years to come when the lone survivor’s story came into light. While John Hammond published a memoir describing the events which lead to the bankruptcy of InGen, even he was unaware of the full story - what really happened when all eyes were turned away.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Nice intro..

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Thanks, Drac. Hopefully I'm on course enough with the characters as some of the major ones will be introduced in the next chapter. I've already written about 50 pages on MS Word of various segments, so expect another chapter next week or so.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

50 pages...

[spoiler]Don't forget the bit about the Rogue Faction's attempts to clone Barney... [/quote]

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

It does say "Novelization" in the title! I intend to go on for about 300 pages - right around the length of a Crichton novel. Only thing is it takes me quite a while to write this stuff so I can't guarantee a completion date.


Phew, thanks for the reminder - I almost forgot to include him in their species list alongside Littlefoot and Gertie.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Dayum!


Who is Gertie exactly?

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGXC8gXOPoU

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

I seeee....

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

PROLOGUE: INCIDENT AT ISLA NUBLAR

Daniel Carter sat patiently on the bench outside the meeting room, the cool, recycled air passing over him. He sat alone, glancing anxiously up and down the stainless white interior walls of the administration building that extended away in long hallways on either side of him like those of a hospital complex, complementing the sterile and sometimes eerie feeling that the entire place gave off. It was always somewhat creepy in here, he thought to himself, and he bet that every other staff member would agree with him if he was ever of mind to bring it up in conversation.

He looked down at his watch; there was still another hour scheduled for this meeting, and with good reason. It had been years since an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors had been called, and this meeting could make or break everything for both Daniel and, in particular, Dr. Halvorson – hell, he considered, this meeting could spell the fate of the entire company. Now and then, he could catch a sharp and unconcealed curse or shout of frustration – undoubtedly from Halvorson – through the solid oak doors, penetrating the continuous drone of Warring’s speech. They all knew the stakes of this meeting, and every piece of news bore heavily upon them.

Glancing down at his waterproof yet moisture-stained wristwatch, he noticed a small fleck of dust on his trousers and brushed it off, and he subsequently methodically examined his entire outfit. It was more of a subconscious effort for Daniel – he was known as a very pristine and organized individual, and it was in his personality to make sure he looked proper even in the most stressful situations. It was in part this condition that had helped advance him so far in the business, however. His sharp attention to detail helped him in both hands-on and office work, leading many of his staff-mates to jokingly call him “Dainty Daniel”.

His flexibility was especially put to use out here in the EA complex, where any semblance of methodized order had long been lost. Jobs came and went, staff along with them. They were shorthanded almost all the time, and their work required staff to be moving around almost constantly. Because of this, almost everybody went to the little outdoor gym back at the Hillside Station nightly in order to get the exercise required to run around the acre-covering facility. It was hard work, but it paid well – not only in money, but in ‘sheer progress’, as Warring liked to put it – and that was why everyone was so engorged in the meeting going on behind the double oak doors. They all hoped that Dr. Warring would relay to them as much of the information she had received not even an hour ago back at the nearby Hillside Station’s administration building.

Shifting into a more comfortable position and leaning a bit closer to the door, Daniel noticed a change in the noises coming from the meeting room – the sound of chairs scraping and people rising, chattering excitedly. He stood as the doors swung open and the keys members of the EA’s upper management came out, each showing a varying mix of anger, frustration, and staggering disappointment. Among the first to leave was Sandra Warring, the head scientist on-site and holder of this meeting, looking relatively pale while speaking hastily and pointedly with the equally flustered Cheryl Mizuki. They paid no attention to Daniel as they hurried down the long corridor and turned out of sight. Behind them was bespectacled Greg Hoffman, barely navigating the cluster of workers as he stared at the floor and shuffled away, followed by the lock-jawed head of security Vincent Kurt, a wild-eyed and somewhat edgy Roger Tanning, and a pair of corporate types from Palo Alto due to leave the next day that nobody had bothered to learn the names of. Finally, Andre Halvorson strode from the room, expression unreadable. Daniel smiled sheepishly back at him, shifting nervously from one foot to the other and looking up to meet the tall man’s amber-eyed gaze. Daniel hesitated. “What’s the news, Andre?” he asked.
Halvorson inhaled deeply, an air of uncertainty accompanying him as he drew himself up. He could seem quite dramatic at times, though he always insisted that such a theatrical posture was simply to clear his mind and establish focus. “There was a disaster over at Isla Nublar a few days ago. A severe tropical storm hit and power was cut to all facilities. On-site staff were unable to clean the mess up in time and the island has been abandoned.”
Daniel’s eyes widened behind his thick, square glasses, his jaw hanging slack. This was unbelievable news of the worst sort. “You’re serious?”
“Damn right I am,” said Halvorson as Daniel fell into pace with him. “At least three dead and another missing. I imagine the place to be a nightmare, from we were told,” he paused, an edge to his posture. “Ah, well it was a nightmare at least, until they firebombed the place.”
“The entire island?”
Halvorson nodded. “Site A’s gone.”
“But weren’t we told that place was foolproof? The systems they had in place were designed to prevent that sort of thing. Nedry put years of work into the security network, there’s no way the entire system failed.” stammered Daniel, cold beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

He was becoming increasingly concerned now; the same security systems that had been in place at Isla Nublar were installed at the same facility they were now working at, keeping them safe on a daily basis. A fleeting image of disaster and a wave of sickness passed through him until Halvorson spoke again.
“Well, weren’t we all wrong then?” he quipped, the sarcasm in his tone defying the severity of the situation.
If disaster had truly befallen the facilities on Isla Nublar – the nearby island project that they had spent the past two years working full-steam towards, due to debut just months from now – this was grim news indeed.
“What will Hammond do?” Daniel wondered aloud, inviting Halvorson’s opinion. He paused, shifted his gaze, nervously scratching a work-stained spot on his jacket cuff. “If he made it out, that is…”
At this, Andre Halvorson frowned, and immediately Daniel feared the worst. “John Hammond is alive,” he said in a rather casually unconcerned manner. Daniel wanted to further hear Halvorson’s opinion, but his desire to ask for more was quickly drowned out by the many thoughts whirring through his mind. The only thing that stayed firm in his thoughts was the impossibility of this scenario, that it couldn’t be happening. Not now.

Halvorson looked down at his friend, as if to reassure him – something Daniel knew was out-of-character for the somewhat younger man. “He’ll be giving the details to upper management, and we’ll be getting the story from them.”
Daniel stirred, picking at his cuff once again. “Do you think Dr. Warring will give us the entire thing?”
The mention of Dr. Warring made Halvorson frown once again. It was a well-known fact at the EA complex that doctors Halvorson and Warring had more than a few disagreements in the past. At the age of thirty, still upbeat and quite headstrong, Sandra Warring had been hand-picked by the board to replace previous head scientist and co-founder of the company Norman Atherton upon his untimely death due to cancer. At the time, she was relatively new to field work, and came from a background of little experience and no outstanding achievements. Yet her dedication, motivation and work ethic had convinced the jovial Hammond that she was more than capable of the job after visiting her at Harvard.

Halvorson, on the other hand, was a lanky, thin, cool and calculated man of forty-two. Recognized for his participation in the success of Genentech, a biogenetics company that was still running strong due to the advances made under his supervision, Halvorson was personally brought onboard InGen’s long-term project by Atherton himself. He had been working at the current location since 1986 – long before most of the current staff had even heard a passing comment about the sheer amount of breakthrough-level research being performed here. He was one of the originals, and he always had a certain resentment toward the young, eager scientists when they first arrived. Sandra Warring was no exception to this attitude.

Andre had been furious that the newcomer Warring was given the position of head scientist back in 1991 following the death of Norman Atherton. To him, she was a stuck-up fool who had been given a silver spoon in her mouth from day one with nothing to prove despite her lack of experience. The very prospect of her managing the entire operation was laughable in his eyes, yet somehow she had established a loose but hard-working community amongst the staff who respected the decision to promote her. Sandra Warring was likable enough, and she usually did a decent job of supervising and maintaining the work done by her fellow staff.

Not that Halvorson respected the decision one bit, and Daniel knew it full well. The mention of her name simply brought up the frustration and distrust inside of his younger friend.
“Not on her life,” he said, picking his words carefully as he passed the ever-observant remote security cameras installed at every corner of the polished white hallway. “We’ll learn it soon enough however. I have no doubt that word will spread quickly, one way or another. Things tend go around quickly, even out here.”

The pair paused at the glass doors leading to the facility’s courtyard outside. Halvorson plucked his red security access card from his lab coat’s pocket and slid it through the reader next to the door. “In the meantime, Daniel, I have a favor to ask,” he said, not waiting for his still flustered colleague to respond as the reader beeped and the doors slid open. “I want you to get out messages ASAP to Hoffman, Kurt, Levitt and that blonde – Jen – from management. Tell them to contact me in person whenever they get free time on their hands. Nobody else is to find out about this.” He grinned his most winning smile, something he only flashed to his trusted friends. “I trust you, Dan. Don’t let me down. This disaster could be the beginning of a whole new chapter for all of us. For all of InGen.”

And he walked out the door into the foggy night.



Later, roughly an hour past midnight, Daniel Carter left the administration building and signalled to the groundskeeper raking the palm fronds and leaves nearby to lock up for the night. The man nodded and moved past Daniel to the door as he descended the steps and crossed the courtyard to his waiting modified Jeep that sat alone in the facility’s parking lot. If it weren’t for the illumination of the floodlights and the nearby construction crane with its tiny crew, which were still working even at this hour of the night, the entire area would feel completely abandoned. All around him, he heard the constant noise of the jungle – the buzzing of insects, a mammal's mysterious howling, the endless chorus of nocturnal birds and other things calling to each other. At this time of night, the lowland rain forest in the valley became extremely foggy, obscuring a person’s view to a radius of less than twenty feet. It gave the entire area a mysterious, somewhat spooky atmosphere.

Daniel opened the door to his Jeep and threw his briefcase and jacket onto the passenger seat, then climbed in the vehicle. He gave the interior a moment to air out before closing the door and starting the engine. The headlights flashed on, creating thin beams of light in the wall of mist. Daniel drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the road, pausing only to exit his vehicle and open the large, metal security gate in the partially complete twelve-foot fence surrounding the newly finished EA facility.

As he drove under the northern gate and out onto the road through the jungle, he couldn’t help but wonder what Dr. Halvorson was planning now that InGen was almost certain to fail. Billions of dollars had been invested in the Isla Nublar project, and now the entire investment was gone, just like that. He fingered his tie nervously, wondering what might happen with him and his job. It paid well, but if he were to lose it, he would have to go back to living with his sister, Tasha, in her seedy apartment in downtown San Diego. The thought drove him mad, and he took a deep breath, concentrating on the road as it rose up a hill onto the ridge above the nearby river.

Somehow, he knew Andre would come up with something, some tactic to keep the staff on-site and working. They were making daily breakthroughs, a new version of their technology being made almost by the hour. Perhaps Hammond would receive emergency funding and avoid bankruptcy, but Daniel doubted that. Hammond had already been under pressure from his investors and it seemed unlikely that they could continue funding InGen after this incident, especially with one of the investor’s best lawyers – What was his name? Genero? Gennaro? – having been part of the on-site inspection which had now gone so terribly wrong.

Tired, Daniel sighed as his vehicle ascended from the misty valley, turning left past the quiet hydroelectric dam that powered the majority of the facilities in the area. Ahead and on his right he would soon be able to make out the lights of the Hillside Research Station fading in and out as tree-covered hills passed between his vehicle and the distant complex. The old place had a peculiar charm to it, or perhaps it was just a nostalgic feeling since it had been the location at which Daniel had trained, worked and lived since his arrival at the facilities. Soon that was to change, though, since the majority of the labs had already been moved down to the more modern EA complex. Still, a few staff members would probably remain living here for a while until the situation of living space was cleared up.

The ground ascended once more and Daniel drove the last few hundred yards up the steep hill to the brightly-lit station. Even at this hour of the morning, most of the staff were still hard at work, and those that weren’t would most likely be throwing parties or chatting with friends. It was generally agreed among the staff that lights out was roughly four o’clock AM, though that varied greatly depending on the events of the day. Often, the Hillside Station remained alight and alive all night long.

As he approached, the gate in the chain-link fence was remotely swung open. Smoothing his clothes out once more, Daniel parked his Jeep, waved to the guard on-duty in the security office, and made for the large, featureless apartment building that sat on the edge of the hill. Under the shade structure in between the small, two-story lab building and the apartment complex sat several members of the staff, including Vincent Kurt and Wayne Levitt. They laughed and waved drunkenly at Daniel as he walked by and stepped onto the concrete walkway the apartments were based on. As he passed the doors to each of the eight-bed dorm rooms, he alternately heard the sounds of blaring stereo music or dead silence based on the room's occupants. The staff had learned to sleep even if their neighbors were partying way into the morning.

Climbing the stairs to the second-level balcony, Daniel looked out over the jungle which surrounded the building. In the darkness, he knew that several miles away were the open fields, and beyond that lay the perimeter fence which cordoned off their greatest invention of all. He smiled to himself, realizing how he had come from a background of half-physics, half-zoology, no job, no money, to a top spot on InGen’s field team and the right hand of well-renown scientist Andre Halvorson.
Well, that top spot didn’t look so useful now, he mused desparingly.

Having worked at InGen nearly his whole life, though, Daniel knew things would change, for better or for worse. In the end, if the cautious Dr. Warring didn’t step up to fix things, Andre would work with everybody to create profit just as he had before when things had only begun to look dire following the first accident they had had working on the Isla Nublar project. But now that the entire project was out the door, he couldn't help but look on the negative side of things.

He came to his apartment door and stepped inside room number B2, throwing his luggage in the corner by the door and sitting down on his bed. He walked past the stacks of documents and sparse furnishings to lay down on the bed sideways, feet dangling over the edge. Tonight would be restless, he knew. But in his mind, Daniel Carter kept replaying the voice of his younger sister from their childhood, until eventually he fell into an uneasy slumber.

Things will get better, Danny, Tasha had told him. They always do.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Very nice. Neat to have my characters animated as was meant to be.

Andre's character seems spot-on. Daniel's is definitely accurate, with more depth than I feel I gave him somehow. Others seem accurate too.

I do have some timeline crits I will mention in PM.

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

And I enjoy doing so just as much! I can't come up with original characters, but damn it all if I can't give life to the lifeless! (no offense)


HA! I knew I got Andre down! Daniel is a bit of a challenge since he doesn't have a whole lot of backstory, but I figured making him a bit of a perfectionist, by-the-book sort of guy would be a nice contrast to his rather headstrong sister (who, by the way, will arrive soon!). As for most of the other characters, they're largely of my own design personality-wise.


Noted. I've sent you one back, it's a bit of a doozy.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Part I
CONCEPTION


HOME

Nothing ever seems to get better these days, thought Tasha Carter as she crossed herself in front of her infuriated landlord’s front door.

She knocked again, harder than last time. “Marty, open that goddamn door and give me a chance!”
A raspy voice came from inside the large suburban home, muffled by the thick oak door. “Away with you, Natasha! I’ve given you more than enough time and you’ve squandered every chance I’ve accepted.”
She frowned – the bastard wasn’t budging, but could wait as long as he could, or so she wanted to think. “Until you open that door, I’m going to stand right here, bitching and screaming!” she called before adding, “Not like I have anywhere to go, you know?”

There was a rattle from the other side of the door and Tasha stuck her nose in the air, ready to continue the argument. A moment later, it flung open, the brass knocker beating jarringly as the door slammed into the wall indoors. There stood Marty Binasco, a heavyset, mustachioed man in his mid sixties, arms folded across his chest, puffing angrily. The big man frowned down on the petite form of Tasha, his face beat-red and his fingers curled into fists of frustration. “I told you, girl,” he growled, saliva flying from between gritted teeth as he spoke, “beat it or I’ll report your sorry little ass. I’m sick and tired of your excuses and my decision is final.”

Tasha forced herself to calm down – a skill that had come in handy over the course of her somewhat rough life. This enraged Italian thug certainly hadn’t been the worst she’d dealt with, and she was determined to win her cause. She had to play careful, though, since her only home was currently at stake. “Marty,” she began in her most sincere falsetto voice – which, she quickly realized, was perhaps too sincere – “I’ve been a fair and honest resident -”

But Binasco had heard enough. “Honest? Girl, you ain’t been paying me jack all for the past four months,” he sneered, his droning, heavily-accented voice making the man somewhat more intimidating, and Tasha shrunk down somewhat under his glare. “It’s a goddamn blessing for you that I was on vacation or I would’ve had you hauled out the second you came up short.”
Her temper boiling again, Tasha opened her mouth to speak up again, paused, and closed it again. Binasco gave one last disgusted look at the younger, auburn-haired woman, muttered something that sounded like an insult to her, and shut the door on her once more, leaving Tasha Carter standing there alone, mumbling curses to herself.
“Asshole,” she muttered as she stepped down from the landing and walked out into the dirty, trash-ridden street.

Natasha Marie Carter was never one to back down from a fight, but her wits told her otherwise. This fat mobster wasn’t worth her time, and neither was her dumpy apartment out here in the worst part of San Diego. There had to be a better alternative than this. But as she looked back on her options, she began to feel her situation become direr with each passing thought. She had never been very close with her family – her mother had passed away several years earlier, and her father had left for Portland when she was in her late teens. She had no husband or boyfriend to go to, and she didn’t really have any close friends living close by to go to.

She thought back about her brother, who had left on some research project for his employers two years ago and hadn’t been back since. What was Daniel up to, anyway? Tasha hadn’t gotten along well with Daniel, though she knew that he wasn’t a very social man, and she still wondered why exactly he hadn’t called since he got on that plane to Costa Rica back in the spring of ‘92. He had mentioned something about the whole thing being “ground-breaking”, and said that his leave – something that happened frequently while he was working for his current employers – could be quite long. Tasha hadn’t cared at the time, but she was starting to feel more and more estranged from her older brother.

No other ideas in mind, Tasha set off for the payphone on the corner a few blocks down. Whatever little change she had left would have to go into it, and if Daniel was unable to help, she didn’t have a plan B. She firmly told herself that she would never drop down and start begging, yet try as she might, she couldn’t get the image of herself sitting among the homeless out of her mind.

Not that things had ever been easy for her. When her mother had died and her father began drinking excessively, Daniel hadn’t been much older than her, and he’d been just as devastated by her death as the rest of the family. At nineteen, she’d moved with a twenty-one-year-old Daniel to downtown San Jose from their rugged house in suburban Oakland. Had it not been for Daniel’s undergraduate degree in zoology and the grants he and his team had received, they would never have had a home, but his work paid well and he eventually went on to work at Berkeley, doing projects with the professors there. Tasha, on the other hand, could never keep a job. Though her excellent looks - not only due to her rather more-than-adequate breasts - often assisted with male employers, her fiery temper consistently got her laid off time and time again.

Everything changed for the Carter siblings one day in late 1988. After four years of on-and-off work living in Daniel’s luxurious suite on the coast of California, a man named Ludlow had called asking for her brother. They spoke for quite a while, and as the conversation went on, Daniel’s normally unreadable expression and attitude quickly became more jubilant. It was around midnight when Daniel hung up and turned to tell a curious Tasha that he had been offered a job interview by one John Parker Hammond, CEO of a growing company known as International Genetic Technologies, Inc., regarding work in bio-engineering. Hammond had said the work would be groundbreaking, things never done before, and that Daniel was exactly the man he needed for the job based on his expertise in the fields of both biology and zoology.

Following the interview – which Daniel described excitedly as “undeniable” to Tasha before berating her on her previous five failed interviews – frequent phone calls had come to the Carter residence for nearly a full year, often lasting well into the night. During these conversations, Daniel would work fixedly on his company-shipped state-of-the-art personal computer, communicating over a very early version of the Internet with various staff at InGen. This work was all done in Tasha’s absence, and if she asked her brother questions, he would shrug them off or change the topic. She had always been curious, but nothing more.

Suddenly, one late July night in 1990, Daniel came home from another interview with high-ranking InGen staff, including John Hammond, Peter Ludlow – the man who had first called the Carters – and three heads of research named Halvorson, Warring and Wu, and he immediately proclaimed that he would be leaving the next afternoon for InGen’s laboratories in Costa Rica. At this, Tasha had protested, but Daniel dismissed her, saying that he would likely be going there and back again for unknown periods of time, and that he would be leaving twelve thousand dollars to her name. At first this worried Tasha, and she had called InGen’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California to inquire. “We are sorry,” the secretary had politely told her, “but company policy states that we cannot inform anyone outside of the approved research team or board leads of staff schedules, duties or locations.” Tasha had lied, saying that she was a member of some company division she had heard her brother mention previously, and when the secretary had asked for her name, department and tag identification, Tasha had grudgingly hung up the phone.

So it was that Daniel left aboard a private airline for some top-secret project in the tropics, leaving Tasha alone to look after the place while he was gone. Naturally, she hadn’t been able to maintain the fees required to live in such a luxurious apartment, and had been forced to move out by the next spring when her brother returned from one of his trips. Then, having borrowed money from a friend, she’d moved into the small apartment in the slums of San Diego, and there she had remained since.

Until now, it seemed. Now things were worse than ever, and she had only one person left that could pull her from this rut. Someone she hadn’t heard from in two years, not since he had left on the “biggest project in company history”.

Brushing a stray piece of hair from her downcast brown eyes, she reached the payphone at the intersection of Owen and Rosecrans and picked it from the receiver, inserting one of her few remaining quarters into the machine. From her tan jacket she pulled the scrunched up the blue sheet of paper that carried important phone numbers – something she had wisely grabbed on her way out – and typed in the number for InGen Headquarters, Palo Alto.

The phone rang for a short while before an automated female voice spoke back to her. “You have reached InGen Technologies, Inc. The main switch board is temporarily unattended. We apologize for this inconvenience.”
She didn’t hesitate nor attempt to hide her frustration as she dropped the phone down into the receiver, drawing a glance from some nearby businessmen. What was it with men in suits, anyhow? Never giving respect to those below them. They were like vultures, looking down upon others until they could strike out and rake in some extra dough. And they never seemed to think that a thing could go wrong in the world, either, she thought as images of her brother shuffling paperwork in an expensive suit came to mind.

With a sigh, she turned away from the chattering businessmen and stalked off once again down the street. The sky had begun to darken, and the quickly brightening lights of the city began to reflect off of the nearby glittering surface of the ocean in the waterfront. Tasha Carter didn’t look up as she walked in long, angry strides toward downtown San Jose.



The sun was long gone and artificial light had coated the city as Tasha arrived at the Seventy-Six brand gas station, some distance away from her abandoned apartment back near the waterfront slums. The giant orange 76-ball hypnotised her, and she stared into it, her mind a twist of scattered thoughts. What if Daniel didn’t return? She’d be begging like a common street bum in less than a day’s time just to afford a decent meal. Feeling around in her pockets, she touched her last ten-dollar bill. The thought scared her, but she forced herself to ignore the fear and concentrate on the problem at hand.
She quickly decided that a solid ten dollar bill wouldn’t keep her going for long, and she turned to walk up the pavement in front of the gas station’s main building. As she pushed the glass door open, she again cast her eyes to the ground. Coming in here just to ask for change wouldn’t look very classy, but it was something she knew she had to do to keep herself going.

She stepped inside of the building as the previous customer turned away and left the building. Aside from the store owner, the only other person present in the building was a middle-aged and heavyset businessman talking on a satellite phone in the corner. He ignored Tasha as she stepped past him and arrived at the counter. The man behind the counter, a slim, short African-American man, greeted her and she asked him for change. He smiled thinly as he broke up the bill, opening the register and counting out the mass of quarters and nickels. As Tasha stood there, she looked around the little store. Racks of food and drink made her stomach grumble, and she leaned against the counter. As she idly stared around the store, she caught a fragment of the heavyset businessman’s conversation.

“It doesn’t matter to us anymore,” he said in a gruff voice, “we have bigger things on our minds. It doesn’t matter what they’re saying, I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about InGen.”
A surge of excitement surged through her body and she focused her hearing on the businessman, making sure to avoid looking suspicious. He looked impatient to leave, and his voice wavered. But the man had mentioned InGen, the company Daniel was supposedly off working for. With a new found interest, she tilted her head and listened in on the man’s conversation.
“Who told you that?” grunted the man into the telephone, “He’s out of his fucking mind. What matters is our company, not old Hammond’s, you hear me? I’m not dabbling in this bullshit again.”
The man glanced around conspicuously, eyeing Tasha and the man behind the counter before continuing more quietly. “Look, these underground ideas of yours have dug us deeper into the hole than out. The company is on its knees, and the last thing it needs is another kick in the head.”
Tasha could tell the man was about finished with the argument, and at that moment she received a tap on the shoulder from the store owner, who handed her the clump of change with raised eyebrows. She pocketed the money and thanked the man with as much delay as possible so she could catch the final words of the burly fellow’s conversation.

“...the final answer is no. We’re done snooping around in other people’s business, especially that of a company about to file for bankruptcy. Right now, we need more than a miracle – we need absolute divine intervention.” he said, and with that he dropped the phone into the receiver and strode from the building.

Tasha turned away from the counter and hurried out of the building behind the businessman, but he quickly climbed into a black convertible and drove from the parking lot down the street. She wanted to call to him, but she knew it was futile – this man wouldn’t want to listen to her. Folding her arms across her chest, she watched until the convertible turned a corner and drove off into the frosty night.



Hours later, Tasha decided to call up the InGen headquarters once again on another payphone back in the suburbs. This time however a new voice answered, but she was quickly put on hold. Tasha was about to hang up the phone when a different woman’s voice which she recognized as the front desk secretary she had spoken to once before came through the line. “InGen Headquarters, Palo Alto, how can I help you today?”
Tasha raised the phone back to her mouth and asked to speak with Daniel Carter. The secretary asked who she was; she replied that she was family. Not expecting to get a reaction, she was surprised when the secretary put her on hold once again and she waited almost ten minutes before another voice answered the phone; the calm and tired-sounding voice of her brother.
“Daniel?” she gasped, barely recognizing her brother’s voice, “Where the hell have you been?”
Her somewhat impatient response seemed to cause a moment’s delay, and then a quick, unfocused laugh from her brother came back through the speaker. “I’ve been busy,” he said abruptly, and the way he spoke those words brought back memories of his belittlement of Tasha.
“No shit,” she said, a hint of balled-up anger in her words. “I haven’t heard a word from you for years now. What’s kept you? You can’t still be off on that research trip.”
Again, there was a short delay during which time Tasha could make out a faint droning sound, similar to that of a rickety old air conditioner, as well as the faint noise of background voices. “It took longer than expected. We’ve been working hard, it’s somewhat complicated,” said Daniel impatiently, “and I appreciate you calling me, but I’m really busy at the moment. Is there a time and a number I can call you back at?”
“What’s the hurry?” Tasha said, her temper beginning to waver once again. “Daniel, I’ve got something important -”
Daniel interrupted her before she could finish – something quite out of his character, she noticed. “Like I said, it’s kind of complicated. I can’t really explain it now,” Another pause, and when he spoke again Tasha thought she heard an apologetic tone to his voice. “Things are happening really fast, Tasha. It’s not very easy out here.”
“Daniel, just listen for a second…”
“I’m sorry, Tash. We’re loaded with work…”
“Daniel,” she groaned, but she could see that she was getting nowhere fast. Her brother, though quiet and often calm, could argue just as much as Tasha herself, and often came out on top due to his careful construction of points. Yet now he seemed different, unable to formulate a good reason to argue with.
“Fine,” she said, resigned, “I’ll call you later tonight. When will you be done? And is there a private number I can call you at?” she added, not wanting to go through the reception desk once again.
Once again, there was a short delay before Daniel responded, only this time there was a whirring sound as well, like that of a vacuum.
“Sorry, you have to go through reception. It’s company policy,” he told her. He added that he would be available after twelve AM Pacific Time; when Tasha asked why so late, he didn’t respond, as if he didn’t even hear her. “I’ve got to go, Tash, I’ll fill you in later. Everyone is waiting for me.” And with a quick goodbye, Daniel hung up, leaving a flustered Tasha listening to nothing but the monotonous dial tone.

* * *

She called back just after midnight on the same payphone, having wandered the waterfront for several hours until the clock mounted on a nearby office building had struck twelve. It was cold out, and a mist had fallen over the harbor. Tasha’s clothes were damp from the fog and perspiration.

There were so many questions she had for Daniel that she didn’t even know where she would begin. She wanted to hear his voice and feel the familiarity there, despite their somewhat strained relationship. At the same time she wanted to hit him, to yell, to make him endure the suffering she had experienced for these past few years without him. But he was her brother, and, despite their differences, she loved him too much to hold him on trial for mistakes that she herself had made instead.

The primary thought that still sat at the front of Tasha’s mind was of the conversation between the heavyset businessman and his company she had overheard at the gas station earlier that night. He had mentioned InGen and an apparent problem associated with it. Hadn’t he said that the company had gone bankrupt? If so, what would happen to Daniel? And why hadn’t he let her know about it? It sounded like the entire corporation was in trouble, and the men talking over the phone had been discussing it as if it were a matter of severe importance – yet they didn’t seem to be InGen staff at all, by the way they had talked about the company in such a negative light.

This and much more threw her mind into a state of chaos, and when a voice finally answered the phone, she exhaled in relief. She opened her mouth to talk back when she realized that the voice was the recording she had heard previously, informing her that the main switch board was temporarily unattended once again before repeating the same phrase in Spanish and playing a short musical cue. After a moment, the music concluded and she was left, her speechless gape quickly turning into a frown, listening to whir of the dial tone.

Her last shard of patience and hope gone, Tasha slammed the phone back onto the receiver, swore loudly, and stepped out of the booth and strode away without looking back. Daniel had lied to her; the company phone lines didn’t operate at this hour. He didn’t even want to talk to her, and as usual he had put work before family – something he had never done as long as Tasha had known him. But Tasha had heard something in the way that Daniel talked which made her curious, and she spent the rest of the night wandering the streets thinking over it.

What was he hiding from her?

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

MEETING

Daniel closed the door and stepped out of the Jeep, his somewhat battered, stained briefcase in one hand, a large wad of documents in the other. The parking lot was crowded today; the staff were working their routine harder than ever, and everyone was rushing to keep up with the news floating around the facility lately.

From what Daniel had been able to gather, InGen had indeed experienced a disaster, resulting in what was evidently an indefinite closure of its resort out on Isla Nublar, and the island had been quarantined, the facilities there dismantled. It was costly, and it had put InGen so far into the hole that they had been sitting on the verge of bankruptcy for nearly a year now. The word was that InGen had filed for Chapter 11 protection, and the court had ruled in favor of dozens of lawsuits toward the company. What other little word had reached the labs all the way out in the middle of the jungle was inconclusive; one rumor had even put out the possibility that the people working at the EA had been forgotten entirely.

Yet the labs, generators and housing facility were still working, and work was being done at a faster rate than ever. If InGen ever came back to them, they’d be more than ready to assist in the reconstruction and reestablishment of the company.
Well, thought Daniel as he crossed the vegetation-covered parking lot, everyone except Andre Halvorson.



Some time ago, as per Andre’s instructions, Daniel had called several members of the EA research and administration team to Halvorson’s office in secrecy. They had all come, except Jennifer Colton from management, and each taken a seat at the small work desk standard for InGen’s spotless, white offices, with Halvorson seated behind it and a stack of countless lab notes and research papers.

According to his best recollections, Daniel had sat down, adjusting his tie around his unshaven neckline, next to Vincent Kurt, the uptight, overconfident head of security. Kurt had his brow raised and his legs crossed as if he was waiting for the bus on the street corner and trying to look good doing it. Next to him was Greg Hoffman, a tall, jumpy man of forty, and often one to find a distraction on InGen’s bug-riddled computer network. Hoffman had been a colleague of Dennis Nedry, the man who had originally designed the computer system at Isla Nublar, and knew every single section of code and file network – something Daniel and many of the other staff still found confusing after years of use. The last person to show up for the meeting was Wayne Levitt, a short, balding and quiet man in the middle of his years responsible for much of the mathematical and theororetical work done over the past several years. Few members of the staff spoke with Levitt often, and those that did said nothing except that he was a man of few words, and those few that he spoke were always straight to the point.

The moment Levitt had hurriedly lowered himself into his seat, Andre Halvorson had risen from his chair at the opposite side of the desk, checked his watch, strode calmy over to the door, and locked it with a thumping click, silencing the mumbled discussion between Kurt and Hoffman. The tinted glass window inset into the office door was not transparent enough to see through, although Halvorson evidently attempted to ensure that was so before moving back to his desk and sitting up straight, his tall, dominating stature placing him seemingly well above the others.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he began courteously, getting an appropriate vocal response from Kurt. Wayne Levitt nodded his head, but did not speak, and Hoffman gave no sign he had heard the greeting other than a low grunt. Daniel himself silently smiled up at his friend looking sternly down on them like an observant sentinel. The omnipotent presence of Halvorson overcame Daniel, and he quickly glanced away - despite having known Halvorson for years, he still could appear almost imperial when in his element.
But Halvorson allowed himself a slight smile, and the tension in the air faded away almost immediately.

“And thank you, Daniel, for bringing everyone here for this very important discussion.” At this, Daniel looked at the floor, uncomfortable with being the centre of attention even for this brief moment. After a moment, he looked back up as Halvorson gave an observant look at each of the four men, one by one, as if sizing them up. Instantly, the scientists's commanding presence once again filled the room, ensuring the utmost attention from his audience.
“Now, before we begin, I want you all to remember that what I’m going to talk to you all about during this meeting is strictly confidential. Nobody else is to hear about this unless I give the all clear, understand?”

They all nodded, and Kurt gave another low grunt of acknowledgement. Halvorson seemed to accept this as a sufficient reply; the EA staff had long since given up being completely formal with one another. He licked his tightened lips and looked down at the stacks of paper piled neatly in the center of his desk for a minute before continuing on.
“I think I’ll cut right to the chase; I had Daniel gather you all here today because I wanted to ask you all a simple question. You can choose to withhold or leave if you would rather not be a part of this conversation afterward, however I must again warn you against spreading word that this discussion had taken place no matter what you hear, or what you think you will hear. Is that very clear to you all?” Daniel could tell Halvorson was all business, and this subtle, well-disguised threat was nonetheless taken to heart by all those in the room. Not that anyone feared Andre actually causing them bodily harm, but they certainly knew their jobs not only with InGen but in the science community as a whole would be at risk if Doctor Halvorson were to publicly denounce them.

The room remained quiet as Halvorson fixed each member of his audience with a hard stare. The tension in the air came to a high, and Halvorson was playing it excellently. Finally, at length, he smiled, completely breaking down the tension once again, and continued in a voice of vague innocence. “What I want to ask of you all is only a matter of opinion, and that is exactly what you all think of the leadership, management and research protocols of our current head scientist, Sandra Warring.”

The men seated across from the doctor gazed back at him intently. The question hung in the air, and the thoughts going through each man’s mind seemed to be tangible in silent room, nearly audible to one another. A moment which seemed like several electrifying minutes passed, until finally the seemingly inattentive Kurt was the first to speak up. “Okay, Halvorson, I'll bite, and I’ll tell you just what I think,” he drawled aggressively in his faint Southern accent, “I think Doctor Warring needs to get her head out of her ass before she drives this company further into the ground than it already is!”
At this, Hoffman gave what appeared to be a satisfied sigh, and Halvorson smirked slightly at the head of security's to-the-point comment before regaining his composure. Wayne Levitt the programmer remained passive and stone-faced, but by the way he intensely twiddled his thumbs, Daniel could tell that he was thinking hard.

After a moment of palpable satisfaction, Halvorson raised his eyebrows to prompt the group, at which Hoffman leaned forward and spoke up.
“I couldn’t agree more with Kurt.” came the drone of his adolescent voice, oddly unfit to come from a man of his age and size, “Warring doesn’t know a damn thing about what she’s doing, and she knows even less about what we're doing. She doesn't care for innovation or the staff, that's obvious. We run the same old procedures day after day, and nobody's invested in it anymore. Ask Daniel here, I've seen him filing through the same stack of paperwork every time I walk by for the past week now.” To this, Daniel gently nodded his approval of Hoffman's observation.
“And, as I think you're all aware," he continued, glancing at the men seated on either side of him, "Warring doesn’t have a clue of the scientific power we have on our hands here. The most processing power in the Americas is at our fingertips, but she devotes all its precious power to the same sequencers running the same old program. How much energy are we going to waste on the same damn program? There’s so much more we can do with what we have here, and I think Doctor Halvorson here knows that as well as I.” He sat back, apparently content with himself, adjusting his thin glasses on his long nose.

Halvorson didn’t wait for Levitt to speak up. “And you would be correct in that assessment, Greg,” he said in the tone one would say to a young school student who gives a correct answer in class, as if Hoffman were expecting some sort of praise, and surely enough, the programmer smiled smugly around at the others. Then Halvorson leaned forward, folding his hands beneath his chin in a determined manner, peering left and right at the men across from him.
“Sandra Warring puts our progress behind bars," he declared, "Our computers, our facilities and our workers are being misused. These buildings were designed to create scientific breakthroughs of the kind never seen before in history, and I think to that end they have fulfilled their purpose. But you men are right, exactly right," - fawning at the scientist's praise, the men all smugly looked at one another like Hoffman had done - "there’s more that can be done. Cloning, genetic engineering...hell, basic chemistry are all fields expanding at a rate which was considered unprecedented, impossible to expand upon only a decade ago. With the tools at our disposal, we have the ability to not only create, but produce scientific marvels like nothing the world has ever seen. We have done that, yes, but I believe we have the technology to create literally whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want. Under Sandra Warring’s leadership, however, we are grounded in the simple, the safe, and the patented, branded processes that the InGen Corporation wants from us – not the millions of new things we in these labs are truly capable of.”

He was putting on a show, captivating his audience, and he knew it, and Halvorson allowed the words he had just delivered sink in with the group seated at the edge of their seats in front of him. Somehow, n spite of his and Halvorson's friendship, Daniel found himself somewhat uncomfortable, but he could feel his curiosity eating away at his inner reluctance, and he leaned forward in his chair, determined to keep his eyes fixated on his friend, unblinking, attempting to capture his friend's attention as he had to the group's. Halvorson spared him a look before rising from his seat, a complete air of confidence radiating from him as he delivered what seemed to come from him like the final words of a historic speech. “I propose to the four of you that we begin working under secrecy, keeping our findings away from Doctor Warring and her cronies. It would just be a small group of us, only a few more than you men at most; an internal, hidden faction of sorts, you might call it. We will perform experiments and procedures of the kind that are normally frowned upon by upper management – the tests we can do but have been restricted from since we obtained this breakthrough technology by Sandra Warring and the management at InGen. There are things we can do with the technology at our disposal that have never been done before, and we could have already potentially begun work on them as we sit here speaking. Why stop where we are when breakthrough advances are inviting us to push toward them day after day? Genetic technology is the future of bioengineering, and we could be the ones who take the next step. InGen is finished, and everything we have worked all these years to create will be dragged along with them unless we take what we know, and apply it in new ways which we have not before by our own power. All we have to do to attain this goal is to, you may say, "go rogue".”

Nobody moved; each man in the room simply gazed in wonder at the tall man towering above them. Halvorson was serious, his delivery impressive. Even Vincent Kurt was silent, his snide expression evaporated into one of interest and bewilderment. They all understood what he had told them, and were sitting in another spell of silence, weighing Halvorson’s words against their own morals, ideas, and ethics.

Daniel’s mind was working fast, whirring like a clock, thinking about what his companion and colleague had told them without pause. Every word Andre Halvorson had spoken was true – the technology they possessed was evolving daily at a rate faster than ever, even with the small team that they commanded at the laboratory these days. Warring had kept a close eye on every development they had made since her appointment as head of the engineering group, and anything that fell even slightly out of line - or budget - with the principals InGen’s board of directors had established had been immediately cracked down upon for so long now. If some experiment went awry, created material or modified specimens were immediately discarded and the procedure abandoned. Halvorson had often been angered by such actions, protesting to whomever had been overseeing the experiment that, with further testing, these experiments could prove far more successful than those already set in stone. In the more recent days, when he had been heading a project, however, he kept his mouth shut, knowing that Warring would simply redirect him to Human Resources back in Palo Alto.

But now, Halvorson was declaring his intent to keep such experiments secret from everyone but the men gathered in this room. He had only spoken to Daniel of such intentions in quiet, vague remarks – never anywhere near as openly as this. Whether he had done the same with Kurt, Hoffman and Levitt, Daniel didn’t know. It would be risky, of course, as any rebellious plot had ever been, and that was the sole thing that bothered him. Daniel Carter was a very by-the-book, straight-edge man, never one to stray too far from the rules of the powers-that-be, and the idea of going against Dr. Warring’s policies seemed like a major step out of line for him. He tried to ignore the bad feeling in his gut he got when he thought about the extremity of the ideas that Andre had proposed, and ultimately after much inner debat he elected to keep his mouth shut.

Kurt spoke up, rousing Daniel from this session of deep thought.
“You know, Halvorson, you’re a real clever, mutinous bastard, aren’t you?”

Andre smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Kurt returned the gesture and before finally folding with a loud chuckle, lazily extending his hand toward the man seated across from him. “Then you can count me in.”

Halvorson leaned across the table to shake Kurt’s hand, then looked down at the seated computer systems engineer. “How about it, Hoffman? Can I trust that you’ll be on our side in all this?”
Hoffman flashed a cheeky and childish grin before voicing his agreement. Apparently pleased with himself, he drew a package of hard candy from his pocket and began to loudly chew on piece after piece, adding to the quickly warming atmosphere of the room.

After Wayne Levitt the mathematical expert quickly and quietly accepted the offer in his typical precisely-worded manner, all eyes turned to Daniel.

His stomach lurched as he felt the pressure placed upon him. He didn’t want to let his colleague, no, his friend – his best friend – down, but all of the thoughts and fears he had been worrying about began to boil up inside him. What if they were caught? What if it turned out attempting to push their experiments further proved to be impossible? He was unsure, and now that it was his turn to decide, he could feel the tension in himself, the anxiety, the concern and the fears of an uncertain future combining with the stares of the other men in the room until he felt as if he would vomit from the worry of it all.

The words exploded out of him as he opened his mouth and loudly announced his loyalty to the rest of the room before he could stop himself.

---------------------------------------------------------

(I'd forgotten that I had written this chapter about a year ago until I was going through my documents today! Figured I may as well complete and post it since I haven't worked on this for so long.)

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Nice so far. This encourages me to work on some of the JP related stories I've been comtemplating

Yeah, definitely go for it! It's always fun to read stories by others in the JP universe. We definitely have room for more written stuff around here. Even if this may not be the most popular section, it's one I check back to every now and then hoping to see some more.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread