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hat_writes_stuffTitle: The Fool Who Follows Him
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Jurassic World
Characters: Alan Grant, Zara Young, Claire Dearing
Word Count: 2,074
Rating: G to PG for... mild strong language? (Milder than in the summary)
Pairing(s): Gen
Warnings: None I can think of
Author's Notes:
Summary: The official VIP preview is their first test of guest security and it turns out to be a very solid test, because it seems to Owen that reporters and photographers are at least as determined to get into things that are clearly marked Off Limits as any toddler or teenager. Although he does have to threaten to have anyone who taps, knocks, or bangs on the glass ejected, Owen gets through the night without punching anyone, and only swears once.
“Holy shit, you’re Alan Grant.”
Claire arranged for one of the world's few experts on raptors as living animals to attend the Raptor Sanctuary's VIP preview; this is how.
Previous Part
It’s ten-thirty in the morning, on the dot, when Alan Grant’s phone rings.
And that’s not really unusual. Since the second Isla Nublar incident the day after Christmas, Alan has been fielding more phone calls, text messages, and variations on the theme of emails bothering him for some sort of comment than he’d really like. John Hammond’s ghost is a far-reaching one, and Alan tells himself he wouldn’t mind half so much if it turned into positive publicity for his work, for real paleontology, or if it at least turned into money.
“Grant,” he tells whoever’s on the other end of the phone. If it’s someone worth a ‘hello,’ he’ll apologize later.
“Dr. Alan Grant? I’m Zara Young, I work in Operations for Jurassic World,” says a woman with a British-- maybe upper-class Irish-- accent.
“… Jesus Christ.” And the only reason he doesn’t hang up is because he wants to know why in hell they’d be calling him. (Maybe to tell him to shut up.) “What do you people want?”
“To make you a lucrative offer. Do you have a few minutes to speak to our Operations Manager? If this is a bad time, I can set up an appointment when it’s more convenient for you.”
He can’t remember what time zone Isla Nublar is in, offhand, but it can’t be later than eight-thirty over there. He’s curious. Damn him for it, he’s curious. (Whatever they want, he’s probably going to say no, but he still wants to know what they want from him-- what they think they can buy from him.) “Does your supervisor understand that I’m likely to laugh at him?”
“Ms. Dearing is aware of your opinions on de-extinction and dinosaurs in theme parks.”
“So long as that’s clear, I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“Please hold for just a moment?” but she doesn’t give him a chance to agree or disagree before he hears music, some soft piano version of… Alan’s not sure what. It sounds like a movie score, with that Williams or Horner-trying-to-be-Williams feel.
He doesn’t hear more than fifteen seconds of it before the music cuts out and is replaced with an American accent. “Doctor Grant, I’m so glad you decided to speak with me this morning. I’m Claire Dearing. I run Jurassic World.”
“I won’t waste your time, Ms. Dearing,” Alan tells her. “You can pitch anything you like, but I can’t imagine giving you any answer other than ‘no.’”
“Then let me work you up into a real lather before you hang up on me,” she says. “On March first, Jurassic World will re-open.”
“Finally got the Pteranodons cleaned up?”
“Dimorphodons, too. A helicopter crashed into their aviary. We’re still not sure why they attacked; our best animal behaviorists have shrugged and suggested it was a highly-aggressive territory shift.”
Alan does not want to find that interesting. He doesn’t like that Jurassic World has turned dinosaurs into zoo animals, but it is damned hard not to be curious about what real scientists can learn even from those unfortunate hybridized test-tube dinosaurs in Costa Rica. “I’m surprised that didn’t shut you down for good,” he says instead.
“Hundreds of guests were injured, some seriously,” Ms. Dearing says, “but none of our guests were killed, and Jurassic World has been very up-front about paying damages. Very few theme parks-- very few structures are deliberately built to withstand a helicopter crash.”
“You have no idea how much I wish I could argue with you, Ms. Dearing.” He has to admit, little as he likes it, that it honestly sounds like Jurassic World’s first real problem wasn’t really Jurassic World’s fault. On the other hand-- “But I can’t imagine you called to tell me that.”
“No. I’m calling because Jurassic World will have a new attraction opening March seventh, delayed and restructured by our unfortunate two-month closure, that I suspect will… draw your ire.”
“Ms. Dearing, nothing about your park’s existence could draw more ire from me than it already does, with the possible exception of something I hope no one is stupid enough to…” Except. She’s calling from Isla Nublar, from Jurassic World, home of the blessedly-aborted Jurassic Park. And he’s Alan Grant, one of the world’s experts in carnivorous dinosaurs, theropods, dromaeosaurids, and in specific, Velociraptors. And she thinks their new attraction is going to piss him off. “It’s raptors, isn’t it?”
“I won’t go out of my way to assure you nothing will go wrong. The raptors’ primary handlers have informed me that raptors are like toddlers, constantly inventing new ways to make things go wrong.”
“What makes you think animals that intelligent, that dangerous, are in any way appropriate for-- even with herbivores,” Alan says, “you have enormous animals, animals you don’t understand, who could kill humans by moving wrong. Why would you, for one second, entertain the idea of exhibiting highly, highly intelligent carnivores who are capable of concentrated escape attempts, laying traps, sophisticated communication--”
“Cross-species adoption,” Ms. Dearing interrupts, “rapidly assessing an evolving situation and acting accordingly, understanding basic commands and following them when those commands make sense…”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“Honestly, we haven’t,” she admits. “Our four raptors were strictly research-corridor animals, subjects of a long-term study to test and understand their intelligence.”
Alan would like to read that study. But-- “They’re highly intelligent. Isn’t knowing that enough?”
“Jurassic World,” she says, “was under the impression that the pack was created to further our understanding of intelligent dinosaurs, and to better understand the Jurassic Park incident, and why Velociraptors appear to be thriving on Isla Sorna while other predator species are dying out as their original lab-grown pack members reach old age.”
“… But that’s… self-evident, there simply weren’t as many individuals of the larger predator species on Isla Sorna--”
“InGen, on the other hand,” she interrupts-- she’s good at that, Alan notes, “was planning to use what our research team learned to see if Velociraptors could be suitable for military service.”
“Are they out of their minds?” Militarized dinosaurs. What’s the world coming to?
“Delusional, at least,” Ms. Dearing agrees. “Our handlers did their best to ensure that ending never happened, turning in reports haphazardly or not at all, playing up the difficulties of working with such intelligent animals, and repeating to anyone who seemed the slightest bit unclear on the concept that growing a wild animal in a lab doesn’t make it any less a wild animal. I’m fairly removed from hands-on animal care, and I run the theme park. The InGen employees in charge of weaponizing dinosaurs either focused on genetic innovation or were willfully blind to the idea that owning a living thing doesn’t mean it automatically obeys you. Those particular individuals… had a rather rude awakening.”
“Did they get eaten?” Because sometimes, Alan swears that’s the only way to get through to people.
“Fifty of them did, yes,” Ms. Dearing says, calmly. “Well, killed. Very few were more than incidentally eaten.” Alan is still groping for words while she goes on, “It was a battlefield, quite literally, and a Velociraptor named Delta did a very good job of killing armed mercenaries who were shooting at me, my nephews, and her favorite handler. I’m very proud of her.”
“… What the hell happened on that island this time?”
“A weaponized dinosaur got loose, Doctor Grant,” she says. “A highly-intelligent fifty-foot-long hybridized carnivore designed by fools to be the scariest thing on a modern battlefield got loose in my theme park, because her paddock was designed to hold something as intelligent as a T-Rex. Attempts to bring her down cost seventeen good people and fifty-one assholes their lives. Four Velociraptors adopted her into their pack structure like an oversized chick, and she’s been easily contained and to our best understanding, completely content since then.”
“My God.” Worse, somehow, than InGen playing God was… this, the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, InGen making more and more dangerous animals as tourist attractions while the theme park manager was kept in the dark.
“That’s why we’re exhibiting the raptors, Dr. Grant,” Ms. Dearing goes on. “We can’t separate them from the Indominus Rex, and we have to show her off.”
“Why?” Alan asks. “Why is that your default assumption-- that you have to make a theme park attraction of an animal that killed people?”
“… Because it is my job, Doctor, to keep Jurassic World open. Every few years, attendance flags, and we need a new attraction,” she explains, with the rehearsed patience of someone who has said this same thing many times before. “It generates interest. But I know you’re going to ask me why not just let attendance flag, let Jurassic World fade from the public consciousness gracefully.
“If attendance falls far enough, we lose money. If we lose money, we can’t support all of our current attractions, and have to close some. When we close attractions, people lose their jobs, animals lose their support, and the public loses more interest. We lose more money. When we lose more money, we have to close more attractions, and so on and so forth. It’s a vicious cycle that ends with me being unable to pay my employees or feed the animals. I don’t ask anyone to like it.”
“It all comes down to money with you people, doesn’t it?” But before he can launch into a lecture on how the animals on Isla Sorna are doing fine, a self-sustaining population (and that the Isla Nublar animals should be moved to Sorna, allowed to integrate), Ms. Dearing interrupts again.
“Everything comes down to money eventually, Dr. Grant, and I don’t have time to dismantle capitalism this morning-- do you?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m not asking for your endorsement, or even your approval. I’m asking, if I might get to the reason for my call, for you to come see our new exhibit before you publicly decry it.”
She’s out of her mind.
“Ms. Dearing, you are out of your mind. What makes you think anything could get me back onto Isla Nublar? To sign off on a Velociraptor exhibit, no less.”
“Not ‘sign off on’ it, Dr. Grant. I just want you to see it. Attend a show or two on opening day. See the raptors and the Indominus as animals in an appropriate habitat. Talk to their handlers. Then, if you want to tell the world we’re idiots who are all going to be eaten by dinosaurs, be my guest. But come and see them first.”
“… You think you’re going to win me over.” He knows, he remembers-- he makes himself remember, now and then-- how breathtaking it is to see real live dinosaurs, and Dearing is trying to use that to her advantage, he suspects. She’s betting that they’ll be impressive enough in person that he’ll give her a glowing review.
“You’ve been a vocal opponent of Jurassic World since Masrani Global started reclaiming the island in 2002,” Dearing says. “I don’t expect to win you over. I’m hoping that, when you write articles or give lectures on how we’re playing God, meddling with animals we don’t understand, you’ll at least graciously concede our handlers are doing their best and our security measures are as good as they can be while still allowing the animals to be healthy and happy.”
“It sounds a lot like Hammond’s pitch. Are you going to offer to fund my research for the next three years, too?”
“No-- I’m offering--”
She names a number.
It would pay off Alan’s mortgage, his credit cards, his truck. It’s enough, he’s pretty sure, to cover all the maintenance and chores and construction projects that he’s getting too old to handle, anymore-- someone else could replace the roof, someone else could haul a new toilet up the stairs and the old one down, someone younger, someone whose knees aren’t shot from decades of kneeling in the desert, brushing dirt away from fossils.
Ten years ago he would have said no.
Today, he’s sixty-nine and looking down the last decade or two of his life, and thinking how much more comfortable being old could be if he’s old with money. With a safety net.
Today, he sells out (again. At least Dearing is in a position to actually pay him). “What the hell,” he says, “it’s probably supposed to be a raptor that gets me, in the end.”
Author: Almighty Hat
Fandom: Jurassic World
Characters: Alan Grant, Zara Young, Claire Dearing
Word Count: 2,074
Rating: G to PG for... mild strong language? (Milder than in the summary)
Pairing(s): Gen
Warnings: None I can think of
Author's Notes:
Summary: The official VIP preview is their first test of guest security and it turns out to be a very solid test, because it seems to Owen that reporters and photographers are at least as determined to get into things that are clearly marked Off Limits as any toddler or teenager. Although he does have to threaten to have anyone who taps, knocks, or bangs on the glass ejected, Owen gets through the night without punching anyone, and only swears once.
“Holy shit, you’re Alan Grant.”
Claire arranged for one of the world's few experts on raptors as living animals to attend the Raptor Sanctuary's VIP preview; this is how.
Previous Part
It’s ten-thirty in the morning, on the dot, when Alan Grant’s phone rings.
And that’s not really unusual. Since the second Isla Nublar incident the day after Christmas, Alan has been fielding more phone calls, text messages, and variations on the theme of emails bothering him for some sort of comment than he’d really like. John Hammond’s ghost is a far-reaching one, and Alan tells himself he wouldn’t mind half so much if it turned into positive publicity for his work, for real paleontology, or if it at least turned into money.
“Grant,” he tells whoever’s on the other end of the phone. If it’s someone worth a ‘hello,’ he’ll apologize later.
“Dr. Alan Grant? I’m Zara Young, I work in Operations for Jurassic World,” says a woman with a British-- maybe upper-class Irish-- accent.
“… Jesus Christ.” And the only reason he doesn’t hang up is because he wants to know why in hell they’d be calling him. (Maybe to tell him to shut up.) “What do you people want?”
“To make you a lucrative offer. Do you have a few minutes to speak to our Operations Manager? If this is a bad time, I can set up an appointment when it’s more convenient for you.”
He can’t remember what time zone Isla Nublar is in, offhand, but it can’t be later than eight-thirty over there. He’s curious. Damn him for it, he’s curious. (Whatever they want, he’s probably going to say no, but he still wants to know what they want from him-- what they think they can buy from him.) “Does your supervisor understand that I’m likely to laugh at him?”
“Ms. Dearing is aware of your opinions on de-extinction and dinosaurs in theme parks.”
“So long as that’s clear, I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
“Please hold for just a moment?” but she doesn’t give him a chance to agree or disagree before he hears music, some soft piano version of… Alan’s not sure what. It sounds like a movie score, with that Williams or Horner-trying-to-be-Williams feel.
He doesn’t hear more than fifteen seconds of it before the music cuts out and is replaced with an American accent. “Doctor Grant, I’m so glad you decided to speak with me this morning. I’m Claire Dearing. I run Jurassic World.”
“I won’t waste your time, Ms. Dearing,” Alan tells her. “You can pitch anything you like, but I can’t imagine giving you any answer other than ‘no.’”
“Then let me work you up into a real lather before you hang up on me,” she says. “On March first, Jurassic World will re-open.”
“Finally got the Pteranodons cleaned up?”
“Dimorphodons, too. A helicopter crashed into their aviary. We’re still not sure why they attacked; our best animal behaviorists have shrugged and suggested it was a highly-aggressive territory shift.”
Alan does not want to find that interesting. He doesn’t like that Jurassic World has turned dinosaurs into zoo animals, but it is damned hard not to be curious about what real scientists can learn even from those unfortunate hybridized test-tube dinosaurs in Costa Rica. “I’m surprised that didn’t shut you down for good,” he says instead.
“Hundreds of guests were injured, some seriously,” Ms. Dearing says, “but none of our guests were killed, and Jurassic World has been very up-front about paying damages. Very few theme parks-- very few structures are deliberately built to withstand a helicopter crash.”
“You have no idea how much I wish I could argue with you, Ms. Dearing.” He has to admit, little as he likes it, that it honestly sounds like Jurassic World’s first real problem wasn’t really Jurassic World’s fault. On the other hand-- “But I can’t imagine you called to tell me that.”
“No. I’m calling because Jurassic World will have a new attraction opening March seventh, delayed and restructured by our unfortunate two-month closure, that I suspect will… draw your ire.”
“Ms. Dearing, nothing about your park’s existence could draw more ire from me than it already does, with the possible exception of something I hope no one is stupid enough to…” Except. She’s calling from Isla Nublar, from Jurassic World, home of the blessedly-aborted Jurassic Park. And he’s Alan Grant, one of the world’s experts in carnivorous dinosaurs, theropods, dromaeosaurids, and in specific, Velociraptors. And she thinks their new attraction is going to piss him off. “It’s raptors, isn’t it?”
“I won’t go out of my way to assure you nothing will go wrong. The raptors’ primary handlers have informed me that raptors are like toddlers, constantly inventing new ways to make things go wrong.”
“What makes you think animals that intelligent, that dangerous, are in any way appropriate for-- even with herbivores,” Alan says, “you have enormous animals, animals you don’t understand, who could kill humans by moving wrong. Why would you, for one second, entertain the idea of exhibiting highly, highly intelligent carnivores who are capable of concentrated escape attempts, laying traps, sophisticated communication--”
“Cross-species adoption,” Ms. Dearing interrupts, “rapidly assessing an evolving situation and acting accordingly, understanding basic commands and following them when those commands make sense…”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“Honestly, we haven’t,” she admits. “Our four raptors were strictly research-corridor animals, subjects of a long-term study to test and understand their intelligence.”
Alan would like to read that study. But-- “They’re highly intelligent. Isn’t knowing that enough?”
“Jurassic World,” she says, “was under the impression that the pack was created to further our understanding of intelligent dinosaurs, and to better understand the Jurassic Park incident, and why Velociraptors appear to be thriving on Isla Sorna while other predator species are dying out as their original lab-grown pack members reach old age.”
“… But that’s… self-evident, there simply weren’t as many individuals of the larger predator species on Isla Sorna--”
“InGen, on the other hand,” she interrupts-- she’s good at that, Alan notes, “was planning to use what our research team learned to see if Velociraptors could be suitable for military service.”
“Are they out of their minds?” Militarized dinosaurs. What’s the world coming to?
“Delusional, at least,” Ms. Dearing agrees. “Our handlers did their best to ensure that ending never happened, turning in reports haphazardly or not at all, playing up the difficulties of working with such intelligent animals, and repeating to anyone who seemed the slightest bit unclear on the concept that growing a wild animal in a lab doesn’t make it any less a wild animal. I’m fairly removed from hands-on animal care, and I run the theme park. The InGen employees in charge of weaponizing dinosaurs either focused on genetic innovation or were willfully blind to the idea that owning a living thing doesn’t mean it automatically obeys you. Those particular individuals… had a rather rude awakening.”
“Did they get eaten?” Because sometimes, Alan swears that’s the only way to get through to people.
“Fifty of them did, yes,” Ms. Dearing says, calmly. “Well, killed. Very few were more than incidentally eaten.” Alan is still groping for words while she goes on, “It was a battlefield, quite literally, and a Velociraptor named Delta did a very good job of killing armed mercenaries who were shooting at me, my nephews, and her favorite handler. I’m very proud of her.”
“… What the hell happened on that island this time?”
“A weaponized dinosaur got loose, Doctor Grant,” she says. “A highly-intelligent fifty-foot-long hybridized carnivore designed by fools to be the scariest thing on a modern battlefield got loose in my theme park, because her paddock was designed to hold something as intelligent as a T-Rex. Attempts to bring her down cost seventeen good people and fifty-one assholes their lives. Four Velociraptors adopted her into their pack structure like an oversized chick, and she’s been easily contained and to our best understanding, completely content since then.”
“My God.” Worse, somehow, than InGen playing God was… this, the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, InGen making more and more dangerous animals as tourist attractions while the theme park manager was kept in the dark.
“That’s why we’re exhibiting the raptors, Dr. Grant,” Ms. Dearing goes on. “We can’t separate them from the Indominus Rex, and we have to show her off.”
“Why?” Alan asks. “Why is that your default assumption-- that you have to make a theme park attraction of an animal that killed people?”
“… Because it is my job, Doctor, to keep Jurassic World open. Every few years, attendance flags, and we need a new attraction,” she explains, with the rehearsed patience of someone who has said this same thing many times before. “It generates interest. But I know you’re going to ask me why not just let attendance flag, let Jurassic World fade from the public consciousness gracefully.
“If attendance falls far enough, we lose money. If we lose money, we can’t support all of our current attractions, and have to close some. When we close attractions, people lose their jobs, animals lose their support, and the public loses more interest. We lose more money. When we lose more money, we have to close more attractions, and so on and so forth. It’s a vicious cycle that ends with me being unable to pay my employees or feed the animals. I don’t ask anyone to like it.”
“It all comes down to money with you people, doesn’t it?” But before he can launch into a lecture on how the animals on Isla Sorna are doing fine, a self-sustaining population (and that the Isla Nublar animals should be moved to Sorna, allowed to integrate), Ms. Dearing interrupts again.
“Everything comes down to money eventually, Dr. Grant, and I don’t have time to dismantle capitalism this morning-- do you?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m not asking for your endorsement, or even your approval. I’m asking, if I might get to the reason for my call, for you to come see our new exhibit before you publicly decry it.”
She’s out of her mind.
“Ms. Dearing, you are out of your mind. What makes you think anything could get me back onto Isla Nublar? To sign off on a Velociraptor exhibit, no less.”
“Not ‘sign off on’ it, Dr. Grant. I just want you to see it. Attend a show or two on opening day. See the raptors and the Indominus as animals in an appropriate habitat. Talk to their handlers. Then, if you want to tell the world we’re idiots who are all going to be eaten by dinosaurs, be my guest. But come and see them first.”
“… You think you’re going to win me over.” He knows, he remembers-- he makes himself remember, now and then-- how breathtaking it is to see real live dinosaurs, and Dearing is trying to use that to her advantage, he suspects. She’s betting that they’ll be impressive enough in person that he’ll give her a glowing review.
“You’ve been a vocal opponent of Jurassic World since Masrani Global started reclaiming the island in 2002,” Dearing says. “I don’t expect to win you over. I’m hoping that, when you write articles or give lectures on how we’re playing God, meddling with animals we don’t understand, you’ll at least graciously concede our handlers are doing their best and our security measures are as good as they can be while still allowing the animals to be healthy and happy.”
“It sounds a lot like Hammond’s pitch. Are you going to offer to fund my research for the next three years, too?”
“No-- I’m offering--”
She names a number.
It would pay off Alan’s mortgage, his credit cards, his truck. It’s enough, he’s pretty sure, to cover all the maintenance and chores and construction projects that he’s getting too old to handle, anymore-- someone else could replace the roof, someone else could haul a new toilet up the stairs and the old one down, someone younger, someone whose knees aren’t shot from decades of kneeling in the desert, brushing dirt away from fossils.
Ten years ago he would have said no.
Today, he’s sixty-nine and looking down the last decade or two of his life, and thinking how much more comfortable being old could be if he’s old with money. With a safety net.
Today, he sells out (again. At least Dearing is in a position to actually pay him). “What the hell,” he says, “it’s probably supposed to be a raptor that gets me, in the end.”
