Work Text:
during
It’s not a dinosaur survival group. Not really.
It’s just that they all survived dinosaurs, and that sort of thing bonds a person, okay? And then some of them kept going back: Dad and Alan, mostly, though Kelly's pretty sure Sarah went back, too, she was just too smart, and competent, and sneaky to get caught or need rescuing.
And then Jurassic World happened.
A couple of times, really, because that’s what happens when Jurassic [insert-name-of-choice-here] and Hammonds and InGen exist in the world. The announcement of the new park came out of nowhere for the general public, but Kelly knew almost a year before. They all did. Thanks to Lex.
Lex, who ran constant background searches for mentions of any of the islands and her grandfather’s name and all of their names too. For strange maulings and deaths and dinosaur sightings. For bulk chemicals and secret construction on islands and lysine even though that built-in deficiency hadn’t done much of anything before.
For things that she thought might mean dinosaurs, and things Ellie suggested, and Dad, and Alan, and Sarah. Things that Tim brainstormed and things that woke Kelly up at night sometimes.
Eight months before Jurassic World announced itself to, well, the world, Kelly got a call from one Lex Murphy. That wasn’t strange, necessarily, though Lex was way more comfortable with computers and encrypted email and coded physical letters.
Lex was, perhaps, a little paranoid, not that Kelly could blame her. Not with InGen lurking, always, and her grandfather’s name and dreams her personal albatross.
“They’re re-opening the park,” Lex said with no pleasantries like “hi.” “Jurassic World.”
Kelly’s jaw dropped. She shouldn’t be surprised. She knew better. There was money to be made with genetically engineered dinosaurs. Companies loved money. People loved money.
“InGen?” she asked. Who else but InGen would do something like this?
But Lex gave a choked laugh. “Sort of. Masrani Global Corporation.”
“Who?”
“Used to do satellites and telecommunications. Mascom was good, but if you weren’t into a very specific kind of tech in the 90s, you wouldn’t have heard of them. Simon Masrani’s their CEO. He bought InGen a few years after the Incident.” There was no missing the capital letter. For Lex, there was only one Incident. The others were just incidents, terrible but not the most important. Kelly understood. She had an Incident of her own. “That’s why there’s not been much out of them recently.”
“So InGen got bought out and suddenly there’s going to be a new park. Sure sounds like InGen’s running things.”
“They’re not.” Lex’s voice turned bitter. “This is Masrani’s baby now.”
She was silent a long time. Kelly wasn’t sure what to say to her, so she said nothing at all, just waited.
When Lex finally spoke again, it was clear that she was trying not to cry, her voice strangled with tears, and her anger rolling through it. “He thinks it was Grandpa’s dying wish. That’s what he said when he called. ‘Lex, I’m fulfilling John’s dying wish.’”
“Fuck him!” Kelly hadn’t meant to say it, but it slammed out of her buoyed by her rage. “Fuck him. What does he know about what John wanted?”
“Not this,” Lex said. She sniffled. Covered the phone, but Kelly could still just make out her blowing her nose. “He wouldn’t have wanted this. He wanted the dinosaurs safe. He wanted us to learn from them. He wanted us to leave them alone.”
“What are we going to do about it?” Kelly asked. She settled more comfortably on her couch, put her feet up on the cushion next to her. Somewhere her cat, SUE, dozed. Kelly wished he would come over and cuddle a little, but SUE was aloof until he wanted something.
“Nothing.” Lex sighed. “There’s nothing we can do. He bought InGen. InGen controls all the rights to Them.” Again, the capital was clear. “I can’t stop him. Not even Grandpa could.”
Kelly nodded even though Lex couldn’t see her. “Okay. But what are we going to do about it?”
That got her a laugh. Small, weak, but it was better than nothing. “I don’t know. Nothing, probably.” She sure didn’t sound like her real answer was nothing.
“When are you coming back to Chicago?” Kelly asked. Some conversations were better had in person. Especially conversations like this, when InGen could be listening. Probably was listening, if they knew Masrani had reached out to Lex. If they were really worried about what the Hammond line might do.
“I thought you guys could come out here,” Lex said. “Spend a long weekend. Alan and Ellie are in. Your dad’s a maybe. I hoped you could convince him.”
“Send me dates,” Kelly said. She didn’t even stop to think about it. They had to do something. Anything. They couldn’t let this happen. Not again.
“I will.” Lex hesitated, then, in a softer voice. “Kelly. Thanks. I’m -- I’m really looking forward to seeing you.”
Warmth unfurled in Kelly’s chest. “You too,” was all she said. She was pretty sure Lex heard everything she didn’t.
*
before
“A boy named Sue?” Dad asked when she told him about her cat. “Like the song?”
“All caps,” she said, laughing. “Like the T. rex at the museum.”
She’d been new to Chicago then, and intrigued by the display at the Field Museum. Looking up at the great looming bones, she’d been caught by the memory of the sound, that deep bellow, the fear that launched through her. Standing there, in the museum, she’d nearly lost her nerve and ran.
She had stood there for an entire minute, forcing herself to breathe even, before she left.
Sarah came to visit a couple months later. She and Dad were in an off stage of their on-and-off again that mostly tied to whether they were in the same country or not, but Sarah was always there for Kelly, no matter what.
When Kelly told her about the museum, they went back. Sarah didn’t hold her hand or anything, but they stood side by side and stared up at the bones of a beast.
“She’s a predator,” Sarah said. She wasn’t talking about the T. rex in front of them. “She was protecting her territory and her offspring. Predators do that.”
Humans were predators, too. They’d had that talk a long time ago.
“Dr. Grant went back,” Kelly said. There’d been nothing in the news about it, not even with a kid gone missing, but Dr. Grant had told them all about it the last time she had dinner with him and Dad. “Why would he do that?”
Sarah put her hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “Why wouldn’t he?” she asked. She sounded breathless but sure. “I would.”
Kelly started volunteering at a nearby animal shelter not long after and promptly fell in love with a gray striped cat who spent his time sitting at the highest point in his space and staring disdainfully down at everyone, somehow looming despite his small size.
Predator, Kelly thought.
She brought him and named him SUE.
“Oh god,” Dad said when she explained it to him. “Not you too.”
He and Sarah were on again. Kelly smiled. She couldn’t help it. Sarah was the best at annoying her dad the way he did everyone else. “Not me too what?”
“You and Sarah and Alan.” He huffed. “At least Ellie’s too smart for, uh, for this obsession.”
“I’m not obsessed,” Kelly argued. She wasn’t. Not really. The name had just made sense at the time and now she didn’t want to change it.
“Sure, kid. Promise me you won’t go back to the island. Any of the islands.”
“You did.”
He snorted. “Don’t be like me.”
*
during
Lex and Tim had inherited the Hammond mansion. It was warmer now, the curtains always open during the day, colors lighter, spaces airier because they were emptier. The marble floors remained, the columns, the dramatic staircases, but it felt more welcoming. Homier. Still familiar, though, in a way few places were for Kelly.
She’d spent some time there after the Incident. Her Incident.
Mr. Hammond had been nice to her and Sarah. Nicer to them than to Dad, but no one was really nice to Dad. He didn’t want nice, and he did everything he could to put people off. She’d been coming around the house ever since. Not often. Once a year, maybe twice. More once she managed to befriend Lex.
Tim answered the door when she knocked. He must have hit another growth spurt, because he was a couple inches taller than she remembered and skinnier than ever. Gangly, all arms and legs.
He grinned wide when he saw her and pulled her into a hug. He still gave great ones, even if he was bonier now and they weren’t super comfortable.
“Thank god you guys are here,” he said as he turned to shake Dad’s hand, then hug him too. “Lex is in a frenzy.”
Kelly raised an eyebrow. “I thought she sounded too calm when she called,” she said. She shrugged off her coat and quickly hung it on the coat rack set in the corner out of the way. “Where is she?”
“She turned the dining room into mission control.” He rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s in there. Food and drink in the kitchen if you want it.”
Tim turned back to Dad, asking questions about some new bit of chaos theory research he’d read. Kelly tuned them out and went off to find the others. Chaos theory was for the birds. Or the dinosaurs, maybe. Wasn’t really funny, but it made her laugh.
She swung through the kitchen to snag a beer, then hit the dining room.
There were heavier shades over the windows than usual and they were all drawn tightly closed. The room was still bright, though, with a pure white light that almost hurt the eyes. Papers and what looked like blueprints were spread across the long dining table, but Ellie, Alan, and Sarah were all gathered at the end where Lex had her computers and monitors set up.
“About time,” Lex said and didn’t even look up. “You took forever.”
“It’s been two days!” Kelly cried, then went to hug Sarah. “I didn’t know you were in the country.”
Sarah laughed. “I wasn’t. Let’s just say that Lex can be very persuasive.”
“I sent a jet for her,” Lex said as matter of fact about her wealth as ever. John might have lost InGen after all the Incidents, but the family money remained, what he’d earned for them all along, what little his daughter had done for it after, and what Lex and Tim had increased by leaps and bounds in just a couple years, Tim not yet an adult, Lex only barely. Lex’s fingers stilled on her keyboard. “Spared no expense.” The corners of her mouth turned down.
Kelly hugged Ellie and Alan quickly, then went to look over Lex’s shoulder, one hand pressed lightly to her back. “How are we going to stop it?” she asked.
Lex tensed beneath her touch. “We aren’t,” she said, voice low. “We can’t.”
That was not what Kelly expected to hear. “Then why’d we come?” she asked. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
Lex looked up at her, expression tight. “I do. More than anything.”
“It’s impossible,” Ellie said. She sank down into a chair on Lex’s right. She had papers spread there and a big mug of coffee. “InGen owns the dinosaurs, and Masrani has more than enough money and power to pull this off. Even the Costa Rican government supports it and will go public with that. He’s sold them on the idea of a bigger, safer park, and all the tourism.”
“He’s quite a salesman,” Alan agreed. He didn’t sit; instead he paced down the length of the table and back. “He came to see us. Billy and me. Wanted to get us to sign off on the park.”
Kelly looked at him, surprised. “Does he have any idea what it was like before?” she asked. “Any at all? He sure is asking the wrong people for help.”
Her dad’s low rasp of a laugh came from the doorway. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
“Ian.” Ellie turned to smile at him. “Good to see you.” She and Alan both went to hug him; Sarah lingered behind them, then gave him a quick kiss.
“What?” he asked Alan. “You’re not happy to see me?”
“When am I ever?” Alan groused. That was how it was between them, always. That was familiar, too, and comfortable.
Lex pointed at Dad. “You’ve hit it. Masrani knows what story he wants to tell, and that story needs us. The Hammond heirs, happy to see their grandfather’s dream fulfilled. The scientists who’ve spoken out about it, all their fears alleviated. He’s a good businessman.”
“He’s a good man, I think.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “Excited, like John was. Driven. But he can’t see past his own dreams.”
That was like John, too, but no one said anything.
Lex closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath. “It’s going to fail,” she said. “Whatever he does, no matter how many precautions he takes, it’s going to fail.”
“That’s what Jurassic Park does.” Dad laughed, short. Bitter. “Chaos theory in, uh, in action.”
“Okay,” Kelly prodded when no one else said anything. “So what are we going to do to stop it?”
“Nothing.” Lex reached over and took Kelly’s hand. The keyboard was silent. The room quiet around them. “We’re going to help him succeed.”
*
before
“Come on,” Kelly wheedled, tugging at the back of Lex’s computer chair. “I want to show you a trick.”
Lex was, as usual, face to screen, hair scraped back out of the way, wearing old jeans and a loose tank top. It was the height of summer, but her skin was pale and very few freckles dotted her nose.
“I’m almost done,” she muttered.
Kelly leaned over Lex’s shoulder, putting their faces close together. “You’ve been saying that for days. It was sort of okay when it was over the phone, but I’m here, and I’m bored, and I want to show you something.”
Lex slammed her fingers down onto the keys a few more times. She was always a heavy typer, but it got worse when she was annoyed. “Fine!” she said and pushed away from the desk, forcing Kelly to move back a few steps. “This program can just wait while you show me something.”
“Yeah it can.” Kelly grabbed her hands and tugged. Despite her grumpy expression, Lex willingly came to her feet. “How long’s it been since you got any fresh air?”
“The air is fine in here,” she said, but the corner of her mouth turned up. The start of smile, and once it started, Lex could never really stop it.
The Hammond estate was beautiful, and Kelly’s favorite part was the backyard. It stretched out seemingly forever and there were rock walls of varying size in different places. Kelly led Lex out to one of the mid-height ones, about even with their chest, then scrambled on top of it.
“Watch this!” she cried.
“Oh, god, you’re going to break your neck.” Lex clutched her hands together, but she kept her eyes tight on Kelly.
The thing was, the walls were mostly flat on top, but not entirely, and it wasn’t a great place to do tricks. And she didn’t really have anything new that she could show off while not on a real beam. She’d gone back to private lessons and a competitive team outside the school, and it was a lot better, but most of that wouldn’t work on a rough fake beam like this. All she’d wanted to do was get Lex away from her computer and outside.
All she’d wanted to do was get Lex to pay attention to her. Kelly wasn’t quite ready to deal with that truth.
She could do a couple things that looked flashy to a non-gymnast. Lex would like that. She took a deep breath, centering herself on the wall, then went into a gainer, right leg back first and then forward, fast, to build up her momentum as she sprang into a back layout step-out, her body arched as she flipped, one foot landing then the other stepping down. She flashed her hands at Lex after, gave her a big grin, then stepped right into another gainer into a back salto pike, her body bent at the hips, legs straight, hands away from the stones.
Kelly shook just a bit when she landed that one, but turned into a forward handstand, letting her body draw straight up. She held it a second, looking at Lex upside down; Lex watched her close, eyes wide, mouth open.
That was good. She liked having Lex’s full attention.
She let herself fall sideways to finish, pushing away from the wall and landing on her feet in front of Lex. It was habit to bring her arms up in that final salute to the judges, but she tipped a wink to Lex to keep it casual.
“That was so cool,” Lex breathed. “You’re really good.”
Kelly tipped her head from side to side. She was pretty good, and normally she didn’t mind bragging on herself, but there was something about Lex’s open admiration that made her feel shy.
“See?” she said. “Worth leaving your computer, right?”
Lex tipped her head back, laughing. The sunlight was bright on her skin. “Never that,” she said. “But if something was worth it, it’d be you doing something you love.”
It wasn’t much at all, but those few words made Kelly shiver with joy.
“This is worth it, though.” Lex stepped closer, and her gaze dropped to Kelly’s mouth. Kelly found it hard to breathe, suddenly, everything inside her drawing tight. “I guarantee it.”
The kiss was gentle, a faint brush of Lex’s lips against Kelly’s. Not hesitant, not from Lex, but easy. Soft. She drew back, smiling a little; Kelly could feel herself smiling too.
“Definitely worth it.” Her voice rasped in her throat, and she wanted to be embarrassed by how much Lex had shaken her, but even more, she wanted to kiss Lex again.
So she did.
*
during
Lex spent months working on the park systems, head down in her coding, a team spread out around the world. She knew all the good players, Masrani gave her an unlimited budget -- “spared no expense,” Lex said again to Kelly one night her last visit, breath hot against Kelly’s cheek, voice bitter -- and she built a system from the ground up. Three times. Three systems. Three ways to keep people safe.
A secret fourth one, too. Only a handful of people knew about that.
“It’s not enough,” Lex said. Her fingers twitched toward the keyboard. Kelly caught her hands, kissed her knuckles. “I should do more.”
“You should sleep,” Kelly argued. “Do more tomorrow. It’ll be better after some rest.” Not easier, because nothing of this would ever be easy.
Lex frowned, gaze darting between Kelly and her computers.
“Come to bed.” Kelly squeezed her hands, caught Lex’s attention. “It’ll be worth leaving your computer.” Her smile went sly. “I guarantee it.”
Lex laughed, and kissed her, and followed her back to the bedroom.
When the park opened, Lex was on site. She had been for three weeks straight, practically living in the control room even though Masrani had provided them with a beautiful suite. Kelly went with her, but couldn’t bring herself to stay inside.
The first time she left Lex to her work, Lex gripped her hand tight. “What if it’s not safe?” she whispered, keeping her voice as low as possible so no one else could hear them.
“Nothing is,” Kelly murmured. She pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s as safe as you can make it.”
Lex watched her, eyes wide, lips pressed together tight, but she gave a short, sharp nod.
Kelly kissed her then, quick, light. Lex was at work after all.
Then she gathered all her courage and walked out into the park.
They were still a week away from opening, and everywhere she looked, people worked frantically to get the final touches on the buildings, to make the window displays look just so, to clean away any sign that not all that long ago, this had been an uninhabited island gone to seed and dinosaurs.
The paths were smartly designed, an interesting mix of amusement park entry and zoo. Visitors were subtly herded toward the stores, the first thing and last thing they would see. The brightest, shiniest, noisiest toys were front and center, low enough for kids to grab and play with and demand to own. Very smart.
From the main building, the paths turned more zoo than amusement park, leading people toward displays that were complete but mostly still not populated. There were no maps on display, only physical ones with very little detail handed out upon request because it had been shown it was beneficial to keep people wandering longer because they would buy more that way than if they could easily find their way to exactly where they wanted to go.
There were signs, though, pointing off in different directions: Gallimimus Valley this way, Cretacious Cruise that. Velociraptor enclosure out of the way, unmarked, but Kelly knew it was there. And, in the end, T. rex Kingdom over here, not too far from the shiny new visitor center. Kelly swallowed hard.
Velociraptor. T. rex.
She could hear them still, smell them. Feel the solid muscle of a raptor underneath her feet. Feel the heat off the T. rex as it pushed its head into the tent.
Kelly headed to the T. rex Kingdom, forcing herself to take long strides. It was a paddock just off Main Street, which was far too close to, well, everything for Kelly to be comfortable. Already, it was filled with densely packed greenery, and both a staircase and an elevator led up to the viewing booth above. She chose to climb, slowing with each new stair until she was faced with safety glass and a great view of a predator’s space.
The T. rex wasn’t there. Kelly’s breath rushed out. There was a clearing pretty much centered in the view from the booth, a display of logs right inside it. That’s where the live food would go. Masrani had explained it to her, giddy with the cleverness of it all. Regular feeding. Live food. Visitors could purchase packages to help feed her. The Apex Predator Package, he said, grand gestures as he spoke, his enthusiasm bubbling over.
Kelly put one hand against the glass. It was cool against her fingertips. She could picture it, kids with their faces pressed against it, staring down, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Their parents gasping and grabbing them, worried, suddenly, about what the violence would do to their kids.
And down there, dangerous and beautiful, the T. rex. Nothing at all like SUE’s fossilized bones, nothing at like what scientists still learned from SUE about how T. rex lived and moved and looked.
There were not dinosaurs here, not really. They were genetically engineered. They were dreams of a kindly old showman twisted into monsters, reimagined by a new dreamer.
Kelly closed her eyes, breathed in deep.
They should burn this place to the ground.
*
before
“These are Hammond’s grandchildren.” Dad put one hand on each of their shoulders as he introduced them. “Tim and Lex.”
Kelly nodded at them, shoved her hands into her pockets. They were rich white kids. They didn’t have much in common. They couldn’t.
Not but the one thing. The big thing. The main thing.
She relaxed a little when she saw Sarah talking to a pretty woman. They were both animated, hands moving, and even though it looked like they argued some, they both smiled, too. Sarah’s smile reached her eyes, made little wrinkles stand out at the corners of her mouth. It was her real smile, and it made Kelly feel better.
Dad went over to say hello to Sarah and the woman. Another man joined them. They all smiled and laughed. It took Kelly a minute to recognize Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler. She’d seen them in a couple pictures her dad put up at home.
Left alone with Lex and Tim, Kelly wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t great at meeting new kids in the first place, and it was weird to be here with them. It wasn’t a dinosaur survival group, not really. But they had all survived dinosaurs.
Mr. Hammond was sick, though, and he’d asked them all to come together. He was dying, Dad said, and that made her sad for Lex and Tim. It had to be hard.
“I can’t decide which are worse,” Kelly said. She started talking before she knew what she was going to say and the words spilled out of her, awkward and all wrong. “T rex. or raptors.”
“T. rex.,” Lex and Tim said at the same time. It was kind of creepy, but then they started laughing. Lex punched Tim’s shoulder.
“Jinx!” she cried. “You owe me a Coke.”
“Yeah, well, you owe me like twenty. You’ll never pay up.”
Kelly found herself smiling.
“I’ll get you a Coke though,” Lex told her. “Want one?”
Kelly nodded. Lex led her toward a table full of drinks, the cans in shiny bowls of ice, and Tim followed behind.
“Dr. Malcolm told us you fought a raptor and saved his life,” Tim said. He gazed at her wide-eyed and a little breathless. “That’s so cool.”
Kelly’s cheeks warmed. “I didn’t exactly fight it,” she said. “I just -- kicked it a little.”
“Kicked it through a wall while doing a big gymnastics trick,” Lex corrected. “Dr. Malcolm was very clear, and very proud.”
Kelly ducked her head. “Yeah, well. He’s my dad.” She shrugged, stole a quick glance over at him. She hadn’t expected him to tell people about what happened. She was glad he did.
They all got sodas. Things were awkward after, the three of them clumped together. Kelly drank deep, looked around. Tried to think of something to say.
“Do you like computers?” Lex asked.
She shrugged. “Yeah, they’re cool, I guess.”
“Oh no,” Tim said. “Here we go.”
“Cool you guess?” Lex’s entire face lit up as she talked about them. “They’re wonderful! They can be used for bad things, the Incident showed that, but, you know, technology saved the day, too. Come on, I just got a new one, I’ll show you this program I wrote.”
“Don’t let her suck you in,” Tim told Kelly, leaning toward her. “She’ll never let you go.”
Lex smacked his arm and he threw himself to the ground, feigning real injury. Somehow, he managed not to spill a single drop of his soda. Kelly laughed, and they laughed with her.
“Do you want to see?” Lex asked. She wasn’t quite as adamant now. There was a softness to her expression and her voice.
“Yeah,” Kelly said. She drained her soda and put the can at the end of the table where a couple other empty ones stood. “Of course I do.”
She followed Lex upstairs, Tim trailing after them, grumbling. Kelly liked Lex already. Tim too. But looking at Lex as she climbed the stairs, hair swinging down her back, and that bright smile when she glanced over her shoulder, checking on Kelly -- Kelly thought, with a strange pang, that she might follow Lex anywhere.
*
during
Opening day, Kelly tucked herself into one corner of the control room not too far away from Lex and watched her work. Everyone watched her, and Masrani up on the big screen, standing out at the gate to greet the first visitors, their attention split. It was a sharp contrast, Masrani boisterous, nearly manic in his enthusiasm, Lex frowning, bent over her computers, eyes jerking from screen to screen. Masrani in the sunlight, gallant and friendly. Lex under the artificial lights, the skin under her eyes heavily bruised with exhaustion.
Kelly loved her more than ever.
Masrani beamed at the camera, and he could have been looking straight at them, his attention was so powerful. He led the countdown. Kelly held her breath. At the end, Lex’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
On screen, Masrani pressed a big golden button next to the gate. It was mostly for show; Lex started the gate opening. The first visitors came forward, kids tugging at their parents, adults shaking their heads as they looked around, and up. Up and up and up, the wonder of Jurassic World rising before them.
“Mr. Hammond’s dream come true,” Masrani said on the screen.
Kelly went to Lex then, even though it put her in other people’s way. She didn’t care. Not after that. She put her hands on Lex’s shoulders. Pressed her fingers into knotted muscles. Leaned down to whisper against Lex’s ear.
“John would be proud of you,” she said.
Lex’s fists clenched, then, slowly, relaxed. She opened her hands, spread her fingers wide. Rested them on the keyboard again.
“I know this,” Lex said, looking over the screens, the ones in front of her, the big ones on the wall, all the things that tracked people and animals, security and food, her systems threaded through it all, and this room the heart. “I made this.”
She’d done everything she possibly could. Kelly stared at Masrani’s brightness, the smiles breaking across people’s faces. She hoped, so hard, that everything Lex had done, system on system on system, would be enough.
*
after
It was not.
Kelly and Lex weren’t on the island when it happened. They were half a world away, eating chocolates and arguing over what to do next. They wandered with no destination, stopping to see whatever they wanted, stopping for Lex to do remote work on a new security project she was testing, stopping for Kelly to visit zoos. In a week, they were due to fly back to the States to visit Ellie and her family in D.C., but that gave them time to do plenty of things.
Lex’s computer started beeping. Her phone, too. And her tablet. She thrust that one at Kelly and scrambled to her laptop. Notifications exploded across all the screens, Lex’s background searches running still. She’d narrowed them a lot, made the programs more sophisticated. Jurassic World was in the news a lot and mentioned online even more often, good and bad.
This was not those regular things.
This was Jurassic Park all over again, and Isla Sorna, and San Diego, and so much worse at the same time. This was people livestreaming from their phones, screams so loud Lex had to turn down the volume. This was watching as a Pteranodon dropped from the sky and grabbed a man, dragging him up while he kicked and shrieked and cried. This was blood on Main Street and hundreds and hundreds of people, bruised and broken and, sometimes, dying.
This was a park imploding.
This was exactly what they had expected from the very start.
“I can’t save them.” Lex’s voice broke. “It’s not my systems.”
Kelly set the tablet aside and crawled across the bed to her. Wrapped her arms around Lex, pulling her back. Lex came, cuddled against her, but didn’t take her eyes from the computer. They held witness while Jurassic World sparked and burned.
*
before
Kelly was eighteen and giddy and facing a brand-new life in Chicago, going to school and living on her own. Lex would be there sometimes, but not often; still, she paid half the rent because, she said, she wanted a room for her gear. She wanted to be able to come visit and have her own space.
What she didn’t say was this: she wanted to take care of Kelly and didn’t know any other way to do it.
Kelly didn’t need to be taken care of, but she wanted Lex to have her space. Wanted Lex to have a key. Wanted Lex in her life, always.
They stood in the Kovler Lion House at the heart of the Lincoln Park Zoo. Noises echoed up against the vaulted ceiling, people’s chatter, the huff of the big cats beneath it. There, once, a lion’s roar.
“I love you, Lex Murphy.” Kelly said it without thinking, but couldn’t take it back. Wouldn’t take it back. Took Lex’s hand instead and laced their fingers together.
Lex beamed at her. “I know that.” She darted in to press a quick kiss to Kelly’s cheek. “I love you too.”
The space smelled of meat and animal musk. Smelled of predators. It made Kelly’s heart race and her breath catch.
Lex did, too, in such a better way.
*
after
Lex and Kelly grabbed the first flight out that they could and made it to D.C. thirty hours later. They dozed on the plane and in the airport and drank caffeine by the gallon. They got a private car to Ellie’s house on the outskirts.
Everyone else was already there. Tim, Alan and Billy, Dad and Sarah, and Ellie. Ellie’s husband took the kids out for food. They weren’t a part of this, not really. Not yet. They didn’t know what it was like.
Lex went to hug Tim. They clung to each other. Tim said something Kelly couldn’t hear.
Kelly looked around at the others. At the not a dinosaur survival club. They’d need a much bigger space now, if they wanted to get everyone together.
Ellie looked as exhausted as Kelly felt. “Claire Dearing called me,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of clean-up after. Media work. Keeping InGen from using the dinosaurs as--” She stopped. Shook her head. “As weapons. That’s what they were doing. Breeding weapons. Training weapons.”
Kelly’s throat caught and for a moment, she thought she’d puke.
“What the hell do we do now?” she asked.
Lex drew back from Tim. Her eyes were damp, her expression set. “We burn InGen to the ground,” she said. “We should have done it a long time ago.”
“You said there was nothing we could do to stop them.” Kelly took a deep breath. “You said that, Lex. You said all we could do was make it as safe as possible.”
Lex lifted her chin. “I know. And we did. And we were wrong. Just as wrong as Grandpa, and cousin Peter. And Masrani.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Alan told her.
She nodded, jerky. “I know. Not really. But it kind of is, too. Because of Grandpa. Because we keep going back. Because we keep letting people forget about what’s happened.”
“There’s a global power set on hiding this stuff,” Dad reminded her.
“I know that too. But there are ways to take them down. To strip away the secrecy. To bring the truth to the world.”
In that moment, in her fervor, Lex sounded more like John Hammond than she ever had before. Kelly’s chest tightened, and something cold settled down her spine. Her fear didn’t matter, not her fear of dinosaurs, not her fear of InGen coming to destroy Lex for whatever she tried to do next, not even her fear of Lex becoming the thing she didn't want to be.
Kelly had chosen to follow Lex all those years ago. She’d followed her back to the park. She’d follow her still, into whatever trouble came next.
“We need more coffee,” Alan said. He slid his arm through Ellie’s. “Come on, I’ll help. Then Lex can tell us how, exactly, we take down a global empire with more money than all of us put together three times over.”
“Ten times,” Lex said absently. She stared off into the distance, eyes moving a little. She did that when she worked through some tricky puzzle, when her thoughts came so fast she nearly drowned. “That doesn’t matter.”
“David and Goliath.” Tim shook his head, put his arm around his sister.
Raptor and T. rex., Kelly thought, but didn’t say. Predators, both. Predators, all of them, and, at the same time, somehow still prey.
Coffee. Lex’s thoughts burning too hot and fast to keep up. Weaponized dinosaurs.
Kelly pushed her hands overhead into a long stretch. It was going to be an exhausting day. Week.
Life.
Still worth it, always, to have Lex by her side.