Chapter Text
Svetlana Vetrova is exactly the kind of person that corporations call upon when they want large amounts of money and a frightening amount of unwavering trust shovelled into their big, billion dollar projects nobody has ever heard about. She’s spent most of her career so far investing in ambiguous projects and quietly making sure that the people running them aren’t about to set their – and her – money on fire.
So when a very persistent representative from a very secretive biotech company contracted her office on a random Wednesday afternoon, about an opportunity involving a private island somewhere in Central America, with what they’d described with a whole load of suspicious enthusiasm as, a revolutionary wildlife park, Svetlana did what any sensible investor might do before getting too excited.
She started asking questions.
Most of which, it soon became apparent, the company had not thought to answer. At least not in full.
They give her a brief run around about what it was they were running here: some conservation park, soon to be opened to the public; the project had been turning on its training wheels for a while now, and all they needed now was some big names to prop them up: Svetlana namely being one of them.
She asks them what kind of animals they had on this island – what made it any different than the Franklin Park Zoo that was worth her time and more importantly, her money.
The man that had sat across from her on the other side of her desk, tall, well suited, lanky and eyes that flashed brightly whenever Svetlana even showed a slither of interest, had leaned forwards in his seat, clasped his hands together and licked the front row of his teeth as he grinned, almost maniacally at her,
“Animals,” he basically purred at her, “that we’re only just really starting to understand.”
Of course, Svetlana wouldn’t agree to anything without having to see this for herself. An invitation had been extended at the end of their short meeting, explaining that if she agreed, she would indeed be paid for her time.
Svetlana didn’t need the money by any means, but she did have one request as she thought it over.
And that request, was in fact, one Ilya Rozanov.
It’s at the tail end of that meeting that concludes in Ilya flying into the Juan Santamaria International Airport, arriving with the taste of cheap airline vodka stuck between his molars and a dull headache throbbing at his temples as he acclimates to the sticky Costa Rican heat.
Ilya was a wildlife behaviorist that had bounced between a few different majors during his college years before finding his niche and landing on his masters in animal behavior. He did work for Panthera, where he worked mostly with big cats, even though he was totally more of a dog guy if anyone ever asked.
He’d known Svetlana since Russia, when they were both small and the world was so big – they’d had a low effort, romanticless fling that lasted over the span of their teenage years and early twenties, but nothing had really come from it when they’d both knuckled down in their studies and worked hard to be successful in their respective fields.
Svetlana was the closest thing Ilya had to family, especially since they’d both left Russia and what little they had there, far behind, leaving for the more opportunist Boston. So when she approaches Ilya with an idea and a favour to ask, he’s hard pressed to say no, especially when she tells him exactly how much they’d be paying him, even as a plus one.
The plan is that they’re to get to Costa Rica and then be charted out onto one of the private islands where this so-called park was set. Isla Nublar, Ilya can’t say he’s heard much about it, and given what Svetlana had told him about how secretive the representative had been during their talk, when Ilya decidedly gives the place a quick google search, it comes up just as empty.
“We’re supposed to meet the guy in half an hour,” Svetlana says, sunglasses on, all her hair was pulled back into a scrunchie, leaning precariously on her suitcase handle looking like she was ready to roll out onto the beach rather than potentially make a very large and important business deal.
The airport is new and unfamiliar territory so he sticks close – they don’t even know who the hell they were supposed to be meeting, but Svetlana has an itinerary that had been pinged to her phone three days ago, telling them exactly where to be and when.
If Ilya didn’t know any better, he might suggest that Svetlana was in the middle of an attempted hostage situation, perhaps for their money, but it’s easy to brush that theory aside when he remembers that they’d happily agreed for her to bring Ilya along with her. They’d encouraged it, even.
So soon enough they leave the bustling comfort of the bright and loud airport and head towards their rendezvous point, where a black car was already awaiting them, the door having swung open as if prompting them to not waste any more time.
Ilya throws their bags into the trunk and slides in next to Svetlana, the cool leather of the interior a welcomed feeling against his clammy skin as the sun beat down upon them in the cloudless sky.
The driver makes no attempt at small talk, and it’s just as well as soon enough they’re at the next point in their journey: a helicopter pad that had Ilya feeling just a touch nervous.
“You should probably only be up in the air for an hour, max,” says the pilot as he’s shaking Ilya’s embarrassingly warm hand. He’d likely seen the look on his face and was simply trying his best as to not freak him out too much.
Ilya smiles weakly and once again, follows Svetlana’s lead as she ducks under the whirring blades that spun above their heads, as they take their seats. The helicopter lifts moments later, the mainland shrinking from beneath them, Ilya dares himself to watch as it turns into a green little smudge against the seemingly endless Pacific that stretched on ahead as they cut through the sky.
Whatever it was that was awaiting them on Isle Nublar, he wasn’t sure. But they would, as it seemed, would soon be finding out.
***
Shane Hollander can’t find his glasses.
He’s certain that he’d packed them into his carry-on, tucked neatly into the side pocket compartment, in their designated case because where else would they be?
He sighs with an edge of frustration as he tries not to turn the whole room upside down in search for them.
Less than two hours upon arriving on the island and things had already started to go bad.
The guest lodge that he’s been put up into is on the same block at the Visitor Suit – the one he’d briefly seen after his nauseating yet rather exciting helicopter ride over from the mainland, and it’s one of the suits that currently wasn’t undergoing continuous construction, although, from what Shane had managed to see in the ride over in the Jeep, production regarding the building works had seemed to have paused whilst this little taste test of a long weekend away took place.
Shane was a paleontologist, and a good one at that. He’d graduated top of his class back at the University of Toronto, where he’d excelled in earth sciences and evolutionary biology.
For as long as he could remember, he’d always had an innate fascination with dinosaurs and the past life of this earth he called home. His mother had been very pleased that he’d done so well for himself, earning a somewhat reputable name in the science world, even if he was only as famous as the front page of a National Geographic.
He’d been asked upright if he’d like to take a look at this project, created and funded by a company he’d only now learned were called BlueLine Genetics, helmed by the mysterious character, Rodger Crowell.
At first, Shane had said no.
He worked a steady job at the Royal Ontario Museum back home where he spent his office hours studying fossils and writing research papers. He didn’t do vacations or adventures outside of the field digs that were rarely funded enough these days. But this representative of Crowell – Drapeau, Shane thinks his name was, was pushy and persistent, under Shane’s skin within minutes during their first, brief phone call.
“I really don’t see how this is anything to do with me,” Shane had told him as he’d paced his office deliberately. “I mean… a theme park? That’s not really my level, I’m afraid.”
From what he’d heard so far at the sudden proposal this was to be an island park, like no other, in the man’s words and they were collecting a small team of people that were somewhat included in their target audience to help get it signed off: it was to be very official with lawyers and a team of people on both sides and investors and whatnot.
But Shane couldn’t really see where the hell he landed in all of this, because when he asked directly, Drapeau expertly skirted around the question.
“We’d be willing to pay twenty five percent upfront for your inclusion,” he’d said over the phone. It reeked of desperation but Shane allowed him to continue. “And that’s not including your flights and travel expenses. That would be paid by us as well.”
It was all very odd – an unknown, apparent underground company with that much money to spare on one random paleontologist from Canada, all for the sake of some… entertainment cashcow so it seemed. It had red flags rising in the forefront of his mind, but the hourly rate on top of that beginning lump sum was double what Shane made as of right now.
He loved his job, and it wasn’t about the money… but he supposed with something as disposable as that in his bank account, a few more field digs might be negotiable with the board if he put it forward to them…
The NDA is irontight and when Shane agrees, he’s no less the wiser as to what it was exactly he was supposed to do when he arrived on this strange little island other than just be there. It makes him a tad nervous but he signs it all away, sure that when his mother found out about this, she’d be equal parts joyous over such a big number, as well as a little skeptical about Shane saying yes to something he didn’t fully understand.
So here he was now, in the suite of one of the guest huts that had been polished to perfection, likely one of the few that was actually finished for the rest of the guests this weekend, of whom were yet to arrive.
Eventually Shane finally finds his glasses on the bathroom sink. He sighs and pockets them in his shorts before he has to leave, having been told that after he’d had a moment to settle in his room, he’d be summoned for… something.
A tour, perhaps? The island looked vast and extensive and what he’d managed to see from the helicopter ride over, through the clouds that had floated over the peaks of the island itself, it looks actually quite exciting.
Another Jeep comes to collect him and then drop him off back at the Visitor Center, where now, there seemed to be a few more people, faces he didn’t quite recognise, standing on the steps than there were before.
He feels a nervous feeling settle in the bottom of his gut as he clambers up the steps, wiping his hands against his shorts as he clears his throat ready to meekly introduce himself.
“Ah! Shane Hollander!” A voice exclaims, heavy footfall coming down the steps with bright eagerness.
A fat hand meets his, fingers giving his a tight squeeze. The man attached to the hand was Rodger Crowell, the leader in all this business, looking somewhat sharp for a man dressed in canvas trousers and a cotton white button up, the first few buttons left undone to reveal his chest, laden with dark hairs and a glimmering of understandable sweat.
“Uh, hello,” he says, eyes darting around towards the other people that loitered around: there was Drapeau, in a more traditional suit consisting of a tie and dress pants. A woman stood a little ways beside him, looking weary – she was beautiful looking, yet by the way her arms were crossed over her chest, it seemed like she meant business. A younger looking guy, no older than Shane had been when he’d been in college stood behind Crowell, like a shadow, bobbing his head in greeting. A man that looked perhaps Shane’s age, looking more casual on the side of business casual, smiling politely when Shane looks at him.
And then, furthest away from the group stood a man, with a mop of dandelion curls, slightly damp from the heat, arms freed from the tank top he’d cleverly decided to wear, looking at Shane over the tops of the sunglasses that were perched over his perfectly sculpted nose.
Shane blinks and tears his eyes away just as Crowell drops his hand.
“So, this is everyone,” Crowell says, gesturing vaguely to the group. “Everyone that counts this weekend, anyway,” he adds, with a somewhat nervous sounding chuckle.
“You’ve met my representative, Patrice Drapeau here, and this is Luca Haas – he’s head system engineer, but we’ll get onto that later. This here is Mr Hayden Pike from Pike & Dagenais LLP.” He skims past him rather briefly, and Shane could only guess as to why – a lawyer on his property was surely enough to raise his hackles a little bit. “The rest of our team won’t be around today; call it cosy if you will but I wanted this to feel more personal. Less bogged down in all the semantics of the legal mambo jumbo.”
“Oh,” Shane says quietly, unsure of how to process that information, at the same time as the girl standing there does in fact seem to know what to do with it.
“Which isn’t pitching a very good case so far, may I add.” Shane notes that she’s got hints of a slightly differing accent, rising against the sharpness of her words that makes him blink. However waspish her tone may be, it doesn’t seem to deter Crowell as he laughs and moves to introduce the two.
“This is Ms Svetlana Vetrova. An investor from Boston,” he says, eyes twinkling. “She’s got a sharp tongue as you can tell. Ms Vetrova is a little more on the old-fashioned side of doing deals like this, though I think you’d agree after this weekend, we can happily mix the old ways with the new ways.”
Svetlana frowns and the other man standing behind her just shakes his head, as if slightly bemused by this all, it’s then that Crowell moves on.
“And this is her associate, Mr Ilya Rozanov.” Shane’s hand twitches as his side, but this Rozanov character doesn’t bother to try and shake his hand. He just nods at him, like they’re two bros or something – so weird, Shane thinks.
“Mr Rozanov specialises in wildlife behaviours. Predators, mostly, isn’t that right.”
Shane thinks that maybe the guy will stay mute and just nod, but he steps forward and opens his mouth, much to Shane’s surprise.
“Yes. I mostly work with big cats but the work I do is varied. I like things that can hunt – things that remind me of our place here.”
He looks right at Shane and grins.
What the fuck?
At that Crowell claps his hands together, looking very cheery and excitable, but for whatever reason, Shane couldn’t shake the weird feeling that clung to his skin like the moist warmth in the air.
“So,” he says, “Shall we start?”
***
Everyone in the group except Luca Haas, Patrice Drapeau and surprisingly Hayden Pike, pile into the Jeep parked at the bottom of the steps. Ilya squeezes in last, next to Crowell, because Shane had been weird and awkward about taking the front seat next to Crowell.
Everyone is silent for the most part as the CEO cruises along the natural pathways, making small observations as the ride along, carrying the conversation in ways that mostly Hollander tries to keep up with, with little uh huh’s and oh, right’s.
The area they’re driving through is very… underwhelming.
Ilya had been exactly sure what he was expecting; the scenery is still very beautiful, worlds apart from his city life in Boston and what he could remember of Russia – but perhaps this project was barely a project after all: barely off the ground, maybe this is what they needed Svetlana for, he wonders as he looks out towards the vast open planes of pure nothingness.
The Jeep then comes to a slow, deliberate stop.
It’s Hollander that speaks up first. “Why have we stopped?” He asks, voice wavering just a touch.
If Ilya was going down the whole kidnapping route then he’d hazard a guess that Hollander was maybe considering triple homicide – in a morbid way, it’d be the perfect place to do it.
But Crowell shushes him, impatient and seemingly quite excitable as he steps out of the Jeep.
Ilya and Svetlana follow… Shane, a touch less enthusiastic, goes too. They’re trekking through shin length grass when Hollander stops, almost having Ilya crash straight into him.
“Wait… what a second…”
He crouches down, like someone had cut his strings loose, kneeling into the grass with utmost fascination.
Ilya and Svetlana share a tiny glance between them: it was safe to say they both thought this guy was odd – who the hell got this amazed by grass? Ilya thought to himself, by then internally answering his own rhetorical question with an edge of snark: boring people, that’s who.
“This… this is a cycad,” Shane says it so quietly, almost like he hadn’t intended to voice his thoughts to the group.
Crowell grins, looking upon him like he could perhaps burst with anticipation.
“Yes,” Crowell says, managing to keep his voice level as he brims with glee.
But Shane lifts his head, brows furrowed, his palm flat as they ran along the thick leaves.
“No,” he says, shaking his head, voice a little thin like he might pass out. “No, this… this is a Jurassic cycad.”
And then, before Ilya can press him on what the hell was so wonderful to have them standing under the billion degree sun, discussing the semantics on a damned leaf, he swears he feels the earth move from under his feet.
It’s followed by a long, drawn out rumbling like something really insanely big had groaned, sounding off like a foghorn – and when Ilya lifts his head to follow the noise, it’s him that feels like he’s about to keel over and pass the hell out.
Standing in the distance, some three hundred feet away, standing tall amongst the perfect skyline is what Ilya knows through basic understanding, is a brachiosaurus.
Shane has risen to his feet at the same time Svetlana bumps into Ilya’s side, holding his arm like it’s the only thing keeping them both upright.
The creature in the distance lifts its almighty head, stretching even further into the sky like it were endless, and bellows again, making Ilya jump and then, he laughs.
“That… that isn’t possible,” Shane says, wobbling forwards past Crowell, past Stevlana and past Ilya. “That isn’t possible!”
But it seems like it is, and now, even as his head continues to spin, a lot of things about this weird little weekend were starting to make sense, and with all the confidence in the world, Crowell steps toward and clasps Shane on the shoulder, like he’s congratulating them both for melting his poor little mind as he continues to stand and gawk at the creature that is now not only past extension, but is joined by what looks like a whole entire herd of its own species, calling to one another in tandem.
“Welcome,” Crowell says through his beaming grin, “to Jurassic Park.”
Much to all of the disappointment, Crowell disallows them to go any further, beckoning them back into the Jeep after they’d somewhat managed to wrap their heads around what they’d just seen, he gives them a tiny bit more explanation as he drives them back to the Centre.
“The Brachiosaurus’ work as an excellent hook,” Crowell says, pretty pleased with himself it would appear. “When working on the pitch, we decided that the visual representation paired better when done first, rather than trying to explain it at a very long table.”
He then laughs, like it's the most normal thing in the world but Ilya still can seem to believe what he just saw, and he’d guess that Svetlana and Hollander were perhaps in the same boat, the way they’d both gone a little ghostly and very quiet.
“Of course, we went back and forth as to what dinosaur would be best for this presentation but I think we’d all agree that the long necks, as it were. They’re pretty iconic, wouldn’t you say?”
Crowell turns to face both Ilya and then the others before refocusing on the road ahead. Ilya feels Shane’s hand dig into the seat at his back, clenching hard as he pitches himself forwards.
“Wait, wait, sorry– you… you mean… there’s. There’s more?”
Ilya suddenly feels very small amongst the sprawling open nature they zipped through – less than twenty minutes ago he found it uninteresting as he perhaps imagined what a waterslide might look like here if these corporate giants played their cards right… now he didn’t know what was actually out there.
“Of course,” Crowell explains, except it’s not really much of an explanation at all. “We’ll get more into that later. For now, try not to spew chunks over the seats – these Jeeps are expensive, Mr Hollander.”
Shane sinks back into his seat, and nothing else is said for the whole ride back to the Centre.
When they arrive back, the tour doesn’t end, barely giving them time to breathe as they’re walked through the centre, now joined again by Drapeau, Haas and Pike as they continue on.
The opening of the centre is exactly what anyone might have guessed it to look like: it’s fancy and large and airy and notably cool – as in favorably air conditioned. Ilya walks a pace or two behind the group to take it all in: the large sprawling marble wrap around front desk, the tiled floor and ceiling. He’d been grateful enough times in his career to have been invited to plenty of charity gala’s and conservation award events that had shelled out a little bit of extra pocket money to put him up in fancy looking hotels, but nothing came close to what was going on here.
It looked good – too good in fact that made Ilya wonder why the hell an already wealthy enough company like BlueLine apparently needed backing from outsider groups.
Then again he supposed that somehow genetically engineering real life dinosaurs had probably bitten into their saving quite considerably, pun not intended.
Up ahead he can see that Hollander seems to be making friends with the Pike guy. They’re chatting, respectfully keeping their voices low as Crowell drones on about less interesting facts about the building and how they intend to run it – it’s just as well, that this Hollander person, the guy that has wet dreams about ancient plants would hit it off with a lawyer.
Like attracts like, after all.
They march on, leaving behind the excessive lobby of sorts where Crowell finally shows them a tiny bit of the behind the scenes.
“Some of this we intend to have open to the public,” the CEO announces as they walk through a corridor which takes them to what Ilya would guess is their labs. “Make it part of the tour, jazz it up a little bit.”
He’s saying it like without the jazzing of it up, none of it would be interesting enough on its own. Ilya’s not even that much into dinosaurs or history, or weird plants for that matter – but he’s sure that there’s probably a couple hundred million people on this planet that would pay big money just to watch a dinosaur fart in this place.
They go into a room that’s aptly called the Crowell Creation Room.
It screams, self entitled considering Ilya is ninety nine percent certain that Crowell isn’t exactly a scientist but there’s more pressing matters at hand as they sweep through the room, looking at what he guesses is the incubation of at least a hundred different eggs.
“These are all on standby,” Crowell tells the room, pointing around at random eggs. “We have a very good team on hand here that work tirelessly to do the impossible.”
Svetlana scoffs, peering into a glass tank that houses three speckled looking eggs, her breath fogs up the glass before it clears again.
“Impossible,” she repeats the word with disbelief before finally pulling herself away.
Shane stands in the middle of the room, like he’s too afraid to react and do something stupid. “How the hell did you even manage this?” He blurts, like he’d been holding it since the car. “I mean… this is just…”
Crowell grins. “Insane? Absolutely. Come, I’ll show you.”
The showing turns out to be a secondary part of the tour that Crowell seems rather pleased with. It’s a small dark room with a row of perhaps ten movie theatre seats facing the direction of a screen. He ushers everyone to take a seat, and Ilya ends up sitting in between Svetlana and Shane, their knees bumping before Shane hastily draws his legs together, folding his hands into his lap.
The screen comes to life, a little delayed but eventually they’re watching a cartoon-y graphic of what looks like a DNA strand explaining in lament terms as to how they got here.
It’s all very confusing and Ilya’s English, whilst close to perfect, fails to catch up on all the little details but when the video ends and Crowell is the only one clapping his hands, Ilya understands that basically it came to be with a mosquito, some amber and a frog.
Shane hums, nodding his head, impressed. Ilya stands and stretches out his legs, ready to move on.
After the tour is done, they end up in the half finished restaurant for dinner.
The walls are mostly painted with large, beautiful pieces, looking free drawn of basically what Ilya had seen earlier in the rolling hills and vast mountains, and the dinosaurs of course, looking very peaceful and free.
The food that is set before them looks amazing but nobody touches it, the tension suddenly palpable as the excitement for the day draws to a close, the reality hitting hard.
Crowell sits at the head of the table; elbows braced and hands clasped together, thumbs tucked under his saggy little chin.
Then, down from him, there’s Drapeau and then Haas, and then Svetlana and Pike and then, across from Ilya, looking rather uncertain and uncomfortable, is Hollander.
“Well. I’d first like to thank you for being here,” Crowell starts, smiling around the table towards everyone. “I know it was a big ask, getting most of you here without the full information as to why you were needed, though I think I’m right in saying that the surprise at least paid off.”
Shane, Ilya and Svetlana say nothing but just hum and nod in response.
“So as of tomorrow, you’ll take our opening tour, which is what we’ll open the park with, in due time,” Crowell says, as if deliberately avoiding Hayden Pike when he says that last park. “Not all of our tours are ready just yet unfortunately. I would have hoped our Jungle River Cruise tour would be opened by now but as you can imagine, in this environment, we have come across a few minor setbacks.”
Pike clears his throat then – beside his full plate is a clipboard that he’d been jotting things down in. His brow furrows as he gazes upon it before looking back up at Crowell rather curiously.
“You seem to have a lot in mind for this, er, park,” he says. “You said you were still working out charge fees last time we spoke, Mr Crowell. On top of your merchandising – is the extensive nature of these tours in the best interest of the park or for your pockets?”
Ilya snorts. Maybe this guy wasn’t half bad after all, he thinks to himself as the room falls into a heavy silence.
But before Crowell can speak, it’s Svetlana who talks first, leaning forward in her seat.
“That’s how you’d wish to advertise this place? Only for the wealthy and the super rich?” Ilya feels a kick of pride in his chest. “I’d say that’s terrible business. You’d do far better keeping prices low, accessible to all. This isn’t Disneyland, it’s better than that – people will pay to get here, believe me,” she says firmly. “And I’ve only seen a fraction of it so far.”
Crowell chuckles, nodding his head, though Ilya could tell that he perhaps didn’t fully agree. “Of course, of course, in all due time we’d like to make that possible.” He pauses, and then laughs before he can even tell his own joke. “Maybe we can have a coupon day.”
It earns a wicked chuckle from Drapeau, whilst Luca Haas seems to sink into his seat at the embarrassment of it all - he was yet to speak at all, but then, to Ilya’s surprise, it’s Shane that speaks, scoffing first, looking baffled.
“Don’t… don’t you see the danger here?” He speaks, voice wobbling only slightly like it’d taken quite a lot to muster up the strength to use it.
Ilya’s eyes flicker back and forth between Crowell and Hollander.
Crowell’s smile slips just a little bit, before he readjusts, squaring off his large shoulders.
“Well… yes,” he begins, words slow like he was still figuring out his sentence. “A lot of safety measures have been put in place, ones we are still, er, working towards and–”
“No,” Shane interrupts him, head down, gaze fixed on his plate of weird looking salmon. “I don’t mean that. I mean…”
He huffs like he’s actively trying to form the jumble of words together in his head first before speaking. Ilya watches from across the table; his head bowed, his dark, floppy hair that hangs over his face, the ridges of his knuckles as he rubs a thumb over them – even notices the smattering of freckles that decorate the bridge of his nose, and as he stares, he swallows hard before tearing his gaze away to look at his own untouched plate.
“I mean in what you’re doing, genetically,” Shane finally says, lifting his head up, though, when Ilya chances a glance, he still looks a tad pathetic about it all. “Genetic power is the most… incredible force that this earth has ever seen– will probably ever see, in fact and… and we’re here in a themed restaurant, talking about this like– like it’s a game…”
Drapeau fidgets in his chair, grimacing before speaking. “I think that’s a highly unfair judgement– you’ve barely even seen the rest of the–”
From there, the table is an overlap of voices wanting to be heard, arguing in circles around each other, notably Shane stays quiet, as does Haas and Ilya before Pike intervenes with a wave of his hand, allowing Shane to have the floor again, since he’d started.
“I just think,” he says the words slowly, tasting them before he lets them fall upon the table before them. “I just don’t think you have the discipline to obtain this kind of power.”
“There’s examples,” he goes on to say, “where people came close to things like this before – you took those examples and you built upon it, which is fair enough but without the right amount of knowledge as to what this really means… it holds zero responsibility, Mr Crowell.”
Crowell nods along, looking close to maybe exploding before he seems to swallow the feeling down. “I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit here, Mr Hollander,” he says, his voice tight. “Our scientists are quite literally doing what no other scientists have ever done before.”
Shane’s face remains neutral but there’s a tremor to his voice when he talks.
“Did they stop and think?” He asks him. “When you were figuring out if it was possible, did they stop and think if it was principled?”
Crowell stares him down, long and hard from where he sits at the top of the table, still smiling like it was all that was holding him together from falling full apart.
He inhales sharply, like he were trying to steal what little air was left in the room.
“And what if,” he says, voice icy, “what if it were, say, white rhinos, Mr Hollander. What if I had this island full of white rhinos – a species on the very brink of extinction, then what! I’d suspect you wouldn’t say a thing, when reality is, it’s the exact same principle indeed.”
Shane is shaking his head, chuckling softly at the absurdity of it.
“No,” he says, swallowing hard enough that Ilya can see the trace of his throat bob with the breath he sucks down with it. “No, no it’s not the same. Dinosaurs weren’t… weren’t wiped out from deforestation, Mr Crowell – undoubtedly, their decline is our fault yes but dinosaurs… they were naturally picked. They had their time. It was nature that took them off this earth, and it should only ever be nature to decide whether they come back or not.”
Ilya didn’t hold very many chips in this argument – he totally understood the topic of extinction as somebody who worked close with animals that had been forced out of their habitats and homes due to human infestation, but he knew little to nothing about dinosaurs themselves, barely able to connect the dots between a T-Rex and a turkey.
But he had to admire Hollander’s gusto here, for someone who appeared as a pretty boring, average guy, he sure was making himself the loudest, most interesting person at this table right now.
Crowell responds with a hearty chuckle and a laugh, indicating that he didn’t want this discussion to escalate into a real blown argument, which, from a quick look of judgement, Ilya would guess Shane didn’t want it either, even if he’d been the one to start it.
“I thought you liked dinosaurs, Mr Hollander,” Crowell says, voice syrupy. “I thought you’d be impressed.”
Shane blinks. “I do. And I am,” he admits. He looks around the table, and at Ilya. “I’m just a little terrified. Man and dinosaurs were separated by sixty five million years worth of evolution have just thrown into the same game for the first time ever.” His eyes darken and once again, Ilya can’t look away. “I think that warrants being a little skeptical… wouldn’t you agree?”
Thankfully for… all parties involved, the dinner doesn’t last long and as soon as the last fork settles against the last empty plate, they’re all retiring back to their suites for the night, ready for the tour tomorrow morning. Ilya is only half certain they haven’t been kicked out of just yet.
He’s sharing a guest lodge with Svetlana, and whilst she’s busy in the ensuite showing the ‘plane air’ off her body, Ilya decides he’s way overdue a cigarette.
He doesn’t want to stray too far from the unfinished lodge village as it would seem, but he walks enough distance to get another view of where he was staying, even when the sun had sunk and the crickets chirped their choruses, he lights his cigarette and feels the instant rush of endorphins as he lungs blister with heat.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke out here.”
Ilya nearly jumps out of his skin before he turns around to come face to face with stupid Shane Hollander.
“Jesus, fuck,” he spits, almost dropping his cigarette from his lips. “Don’t… fucking do that.”
Shane winces, his face screwing up a little bit. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ilya waves it off as his heart slows to a more acceptable rhythm in his chest. He takes another puff of his cigarette, turning his head away to exhale before he turns to again face Hollander, who was now just standing there like a lemon.
“What are you doing out here anyway?” He asks him.
Shane blinks. This guy was really, really strange.
“I just… needed some air,” he tells him quietly. “Got a lot of thoughts in my head still, from earlier.”
Right, Ilya thinks bitterly. A whole entire private island to get some air and he subsequently wanted to get some right where Ilya was trying to have a smoke.
“Hm,” Ilya hums. He’s far too tired to have a conversation following that disastrous dinner scene, so he prematurely stubs his cigarette out and sniffs.
“Try not to break your brain too hard,” Ilya tells him as he moves to walk away. “I have a feeling tomorrow will be even crazier.”
Shane frowns, but before he can retort to that, Ilya walks away, ready for his bed, not at all ready for what lay ahead of this weekend.