ancient chaos - zach mitchell

"Oh come on, that was one time!"

Me and my dad were at the raptor paddock, as usual. Claire had asked me to show around her nephews later on so I was trying to convince Owen to let me borrow his bike.
Keyword: Trying.

"Yeah, a one time thing where I had to get a new bike." he rolls his eyes at his daughter.

"Ughh, pleasee?" I pleaded.

"We gotta get to work kid." he ignored my pleading. I sighed.

Me and my dad walked up to the bridge that hung above the paddock. "HOLD!" he says.

The velociraptors obediently comply. They abruptly pull to a halt. "Hey!" I hold my hand up."Okay!" my dad presses a clicker. "Eyes on me! Blue?"

"Blue! Watch it." he yells.

"Charlie. Hey! Don't give me that shit!" I yell.

"Delta! Lock it up! Good! And we're moving." my dad continues. We move to where a basket hangs from a railing. "HOLD!" I yell again.

"That's good. That is damn good." my dad presses the clicker "Very good! See, Charlie, that's what you get!" he throws bait to Charlie, who promptly snatches it from the air

"Echo, there you go!" I yell and throw bait to her aswell. "Delta!" my dad continues as I throw the bait. "Blue? This one's for you."

"HOLD!" I continue "Eyes up!" I pause for a second "Go." And with that the Raptors scatter.

On the platform above, hands are shaken and cheers heard. Barry, another raptor trainer approaches me and my dad.

"You guys finally did it, man." he gives me a hug.

But as he does so the man I like to call satan appears. "Owen, Amara. I was starting to think I hired the wrong guys, but, damn, you two got them eating out of your palms." Hoskins says as I scowled at him.

"You came on a good day. It's not usually a happy ending." my dad says as annoyed by his presence as I am.

"Is that why you're not sending in your reports?" Hoskins prys.

I step in "We've been busy."

"Not too busy to cash your paychecks sweetheart." he smiles sickly at me.

"What do you need, buddy?" Owen takes a protective step in front of me. Not liking the way Hoskins stare lingers on my legs. I mentally scolded myself for wearing shorts.

"A field test. Hey. I've just seen they can respond to commands. We need to take the research and get it on its feet." Satan explains.

"These are wild animals, Hoskins. Trust me, you DON'T want them in the field." I try to step in front of my dad but he puts his arm in front of me so I can't.

"I just saw a bond. A real bond. Between men and beast." Hoskins said and stepped in front of us when we tried to walk away.

"You're in my way." my dad says but his comment gets ignored by satan. "Come on. We're the same. We're dogs of war. We know that the military needs to reduce casualties. Some people think that robots are the future."
Seeing my dad and I's annoyed looks he continued." Look, nature gave us the most effective killing machines 75 million years ago. And now we know they can take orders."

"We finally make progress and that's the first thing he says? Make a weapon?" Barry decides to step in.

"Shit. Come on, gents. It's grown-up time. Drones can't search tunnels and caves. And they're hackable. The minute a real war breaks out, all that fancy tech is gonna go dark." Hoskins states.

"But that tech's not gonna eat them if they forget to feed it." I sassily say.

"Look at these creatures sweetheart." he point to the Raptors " They've got millions of years of instinct in their cells, instinct that we can program. Their loyalty can NOT be bought. These guys are gonna run straight into the enemy's teeth and eat them, belt buckle and all."

"What if they decide THEY wanna be in control?" my dad asks him.

"Well, then we remind them who is. We terminate the rogues. Promote only loyal bloodlines." he says and me and my dad look at each other before we start laughing.

"What? What's so funny?"

"I don't know. You come here and you DON'T learn anything about these animals except what you want to know. You made them, and now you think you own them." my dad angrily says.

"We DO own them. Extinct animals have no rights." Hoskins states.

"They're not extinct anymore, Hoskins." I say.

"Exactly. We're sitting on a GOLDMINE and Masrani is using it to stock a petting zoo. He just wants to teach people some humility. He doesn't make weapons. You think that the eighth richest man in the world is only into oil, telecom, and family fun parks? He's so diversified, he doesn't even KNOW what he owns. How long has InGen been practicing this pitch? Since the day we hired you out of the Navy. You knew the end game. These animals can replace thousands of boots on the ground. How many lives would that save? War is part of nature. Look around, Owen. Every living thing in this jungle is trying to murder the other. Mother Nature's way of testing her creations. Refining the pecking order. War is a struggle. Struggle breeds greatness. Without that, we end up with places like this, charge seven bucks a soda." he dramatically explains.

"Do you hear yourself when you talk?" I sigh after a minute of silence.

"This is gonna happen. With or without you all. Progress always wins, man." Hoskins ststes.

"Maybe progress should lose for once." my dad says.

But before anyone could say anything one of the workers yells. "Pig loose! Pig loose!"

The worker falls into the raptors' paddock when he tried to grab the pig, attracting the attention of Blue, Charlie, and Delta.

I opened the gate and rushes inside to save him. "Amara, no!" I could hear my dad yell.

I see two rangers aim their weapons at the raptors. "Oh no, no, hold your fire!" I yell and approach the raptors."Hold your fire, do not fire!" Barry closes the gate. "Put 12 amps in these animals, they're never gonna to trust me or my dad again."

Barry and Owen pull Leon out of the paddock.
"Blue, stand down. Stand down." I yell, Blue snaps at me. "Hey, hey! What did I just say? Delta, I see you. Back up." Delta snarls.

"Okay, good. Good. Charlie? Stay right there. Good." I keep my eyes on the raptors when I yell at Barry "Close the gate."

"Are you crazy?" he asks while my dad yells "Amara no!"

"Just trust me dad. Close the gate!" I yell agsin

I back up to the gate and at the last possible second, I drop down and roll underneath as the gate slams shut. The raptors try to follow me and ram their heads into the metal.

My dad runs up to me and pulls me in a hug
"I'm okay." I breath out.

"Yeah?" he looks unsure. "Yeah."

I turn and look at the boy that fell in the paddock "You're the new guy, right?"

He nods."Yeah."

"You ever wonder why there was a job opening?" my dad asks and the boy looks terrified.

"Hey." I call out to him and he turns to me.

"Don't ever turn your back to the cage."

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