And the Artist found the perfect creature, one of cunning and sharp intellect

Michael was born on June 14th, 1988 and had been as healthy as could be, much to James’ delight. It meant missing three weeks of work to be with Cathy and his newborn son, but he hadn’t minded; the lab was still finishing up on the Tyrannosaurus genome and Henry had promised they would hold off on the Velociraptor until he returned…Even if it meant starting work on the Pteranodons, instead. It was a gesture that James appreciated greatly, owing to his personal and still secret interest in the raptors.

Well, that was a lie. He’d confided in Henry, owing to their frequent conversations about the future of genetic manipulation. Henry was still firmly in the camp of custom creating an animal by way of building the genome from scratch while James wanted to use an existing genome, likely human, and altering it. They didn’t truly butt heads over the differences in ideas, but instead had friendly debates where they tried to poke holes in each other’s theories. Neither of them were willing to completely abandon their ideas, but both agreed that neither were possible at this point of time.

Once he returned from his vacation, the lab began work on the Velociraptors, given that the completed Tyrannosaur genome had been passed on to the production floor. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t done several times before, but there was always a subtle excitement to the lab when they were finally able to move on to a new project. For James, he was excited for an entirely different reason. The Velociraptors were arguably one of the few dinosaurs they’d worked on, so far, that matched what he wanted. That being said, he had a quiet concern that the current literature on them would be absolutely, positively wrong.

When it came time for the clutch to hatch, James volunteered to stay. If they hatched during the night, it would give him a few hours of uninterrupted time to observe them. It wasn’t likely, given that the clutches were specifically incubated to hatch within the same block of time, but there were always stragglers. Which meant that he was absolutely unsurprised when the first egg cracked, right on time. It meant that he’d timed his work just perfectly, today, and only needed to do a little bit of last minute clean up before he was able to join the others as they crowded around the incubators. Of course, the dinosaur didn’t immediately hatch, but the first egg crack was…Special, in some way, because it was the first breath an extinct species had taken in millions of years.

Three hours later, towards the end of the shift, the first Velociraptor tumbled out of its shell. The hatchling was a muted grey color with brown-grey mottles. Muddy colored eyes that were already showing hints of gold scrutinized the faces that were all but pressed against the glass. Opening its mouth, the hatchling hissed before trying to wobble up onto its feet. It immediately fell over, but was very determined to prove that it wasn’t scared of them.

“Well. Aren’t you adorably feisty?” James all but cooed, prompting Henry to look away to hide the quiet snicker he was making.

“Of course, you would think they’re cute.” Someone off to Henry’s right grouched. “I imagine you’ll stop thinking they’re cute when one takes off your finger?”

This was, no doubt, a jab at how he’d nearly lost a finger to one of the Compys. James made a sour look at his coworker. “Compys are also stupider than a chicken, which is really saying a lot.”

Softly, Henry sighed and carefully inserted himself into the budding argument in order to, hopefully, defuse it. “We’ve all nearly lost a finger or two when dealing with the carnivores. It’s one of the risks of working with them.”

James shifted his attention back to the hatchling, pointedly ignoring his coworker as he made mental notes about the creature. Most hatchlings were either fussy or sleepy after freeing themselves from their shell. This one was alert, but defensive. Any sort of movement caused it to immediately focus on the perpetrator and let out a throaty hiss or warning. The creature was clearly smart enough to recognize them as being a different species while the others had been more interested on if their next meal was going to be delivered or not.

By the end of the shift, several more eggs had hatched, which signaled that it was time to feed the firstborn hatchlings and mark each with a spot of color using non-toxic paint. It simply made it easier to know which hatchling was being talking about; 3-Blue would indicate the hatchling with the blue mark in incubator three.

Marking them was easier said than done. While still a bit uncoordinated with their limbs, the hatchlings’ claws had dried and hardened which meant James needed gloves. The gloves also meant that his hands were spared from small, sharp teeth. However, he quickly noticed how the four other hatchlings in the incubator were watching him handle the first. Curiously, he kept the first in his hand after marking its rump and began feeding it. By the fourth chunk of meat, the young velociraptor had calmed and stopped trying to claw him. Instead, it eagerly watched him while it waited for the next chunk of food.

Once it was done eating, he set it back into the incubator and scooped up the next. Interestingly, it fought a bit less than the first and calmed as soon as it saw the food. By the time he picked up the fourth hatchling, the youngsters had stopped squirming and trying to claw him, entirely. Instead, it patiently waited to be fed. It fascinated him on how they’d learned so quickly by simply watching. After setting the fifth down next to the small pile of sleepy raptors, James smiled slightly. As much as he wanted to watch them, he still had two more incubators to tend to.

Everything in the lab was as scheduled as humanly possible, which meant the hatchlings were fed at specific times plus or minus a few minutes. By the third day, all three incubators had learned the feeding schedule and eagerly waited for James to feed them. He’d, quietly, decided to run his own experiment and fed the hatchlings of one of the incubators in a specific order while the hatchlings of other two incubators were fed at random. The two random ones frequently argued and jockeyed to get food, while the one with a specific order waited patiently for their turn.

If nothing else, it spoke volumes about their intelligence, even at such a young age. Despite this, they were surprisingly aggressive and as soon as they were able to move around began fighting with one another. However, it wasn’t the same type of aggression as the Tyrannosaurs, instead, it was an attempt to find position in the budding pack. Once the hierarchy had been established, typically with the firstborn being the leader, things calmed down. However, it proved to become an issue with the two incubators where he’d fed them at random.

In those incubators, the raptors relied more on their pack leader and feeding at random caused fights among the pack members. One such instance resulted in injury and subsequent euthanization of a hatchling, which threw the entire group into disarray and caused the rest of them to be euthanized because of further injuries from pack infighting. It wasn’t his proudest moment, but certainly proved to be an important learning point for him. However, it drove home how routine and consistency was important for the raptors, especially with how the incubator where he’d remained consistent in his feeding lacked these issues.

As the weeks passed, the remaining incubator where he’d been inconsistent with his feeding order rapidly became unhandleable due to their increasing aggression. Much like the other incubator of hatchlings, these too, were euthanized. James was honestly fine with this, they really only needed one incubator to check viability of the DNA and has much as he hated the idea, the remaining incubator was reaching the point where they too, would be euthanized. It was just as well, despite having clearly imprinted on him in some fashion, they were still becoming aggressive.

James reasoned that it was largely because the hatchlings weren’t handled much outside of feeding and physical examinations, meaning they were barely humanized. Despite this, they’d learned a handful of simple commands, already. All and all, it told him that Velociraptors were the ideal species for his hypothetical hybrids. Though, the dinosaurs were on the small size and additional work would need to be done to make them larger. However, Velociraptors were the only Dromaeosauridae member they had access to, despite the larger Deinonychus existing.

When the day arrived for the hatchlings to be euthanized to make way for the second generation, James opted to visit the hold area of the facility, instead. There, the hatchlings were cared for while they grew until they were large enough to be transported to Nublar. It allowed the workers to carefully scrutinize the hatchlings and cull out any weak ones that would be a drain on resources. There wasn’t much point in trying to nurse along a weak hatchling when her sisters were twice as strong.

Quietly, he watched the young Tyrannosaur as fed her. She was only a few weeks old, but had put on an impressive amount of size already thanks to the growth hormone. Her four sisters had been culled early on thanks to her showing the best projected growth rate among all of them. James glanced at the clipboard attached to her pen that showed the week’s schedule for feeding, cleaning, and vaccinations. Evidently, they’d chosen to name her Rexy. Not the most original name, he supposed, but it worked well enough.

Rexy was slated to be the Tyrannosaur who would be one of the star attractions on Nublar, and James honestly looked forward to seeing her in her enclosure. She still had several more months of growth till she’d be moved, however. As he watched her pick at the chunks of meat, he mused over what the finished park might look like since he hadn’t seen whatever plans John had drawn up for his vision. It made him wonder if the man planned on covering the island entirely, or if he intended on leaving most of it wild. Only time would tell, he supposed.

It was several months later, when they had finished work on the Velociraptors and Pteranodons that John invited them to Isla Nublar. He wasn’t ready to allow them to tour the park, given that many of the enclosures were empty. However, he did want to show them the future genetics lab. While the lab on Sorna had been state of the art, the one on Nublar made Sorna’s look like something backwater and ancient. James slowly looked around the lab; most of the equipment still covered in protective plastic sheets and hadn’t been connected to anything.

He only half paid attention to John; the place was designed to be a bit of a show room for the tourists and would partially be taking the place of the grow out pens on Sorna. Any dinosaurs created here, would be ‘finished’ genomes, with the idea of eventually phasing Sorna out of Phase 1 dinosaurs and into Phase 2. With it only being late ’88 with plans of a soft open for investors in ’93, they had plenty of time to finish up the dinosaur genomes and begin work on Phase 2.

Though, all of this made James wonder who John planned on having in the Nublar lab. Would some of Sorna’s crew make the move, or would he just hire new people entirely? These were the questions he mused over as he examined one of the incubators. Though, he looked over to Henry when the man stepped up next to him. “This makes the lab on Sorna look like absolute shit.”

Softly, Henry laughed and nodded as he ran his hand over the top of the incubator. “It does. I’ve been in contact with John with specifications on what equipment and how I wanted the lab designed, based off of the various complaints we’ve had with the Sorna lab. The equipment was all custom made for the lab’s needs. The incubators, for example, have a modular egg plate system. Meaning we can change the plate to suit whatever size eggs we’re needing to incubate. Saves us from having to pad the egg holder.”

All and all, it was excellent news, but James couldn’t help but feel a slight stab of jealousy towards whoever would get to work in the lab. Then again, whoever worked on Nublar would have to deal with tourist tours and that wasn’t too appealing in his mind. “Any word on how John’s going to staff it? Or is he keeping that close to his chest?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. John wants to pull me off Sorna and move me here to manage the lab. Since he’ll need to hire new people to staff it, he wants someone experienced to manage it and teach them the ropes.” Finally, Henry looked to James and had a faint smile on his face. “If you’re willing, I’d like it if you took over the Sorna lab in my stead. I’d still be your superior and you’d direct questions to me, as we’ve always done, but you’d be in charge of the lab. John left the decision to me and will promote whoever’s name I give him, no questions asked.”

Honestly, the offer caught James off guard but it was the exact thing he’d hoped for when he sent in his initial job application to InGen. Looking to Henry with a smile, James nodded. “I’d like that.”