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"Birds of Prey"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: R Warnings: Adventure & Suspense, Pairings: 1x2 Summary: Only twenty feet, but over 200 million years between them and for a while neither party knew what to do. The creature took a step towards them, almost apprehensively. Duo and Heero reactively jumped back and Duo tripped over his own feet and fell backwards. Then it all boiled down to two things: Predator. And prey. Birds of Prey – A GW adaptation of Jurassic Park (1993)
"Birds of Prey" Chapter 4
After half an hour they were coming up to a ninety degree corner in the fence and Duo caught something glistening on the jungle floor. When they reached the corner, they noticed a dirt road curving towards the fence and then following it West, hugging the perimeter closely. At the center of the road lay a single metal track. He knelt down and studied it quizzically, wondering out loud what purpose it could possible serve in the middle of nowhere. Heero tapped his shoulder and pointed down the road to a bright yellow sign with a black shape and script, too far away to read. Wordlessly, Duo got up and started towards it. An odd hooting sound to his right drew his attention and he stopped to peer through the fence, but the foliage beyond was too dense to see anything. The hooting continued and became faint and distant. He continued towards the sign, hearing nothing now but the rustling of leaves and Heero's footfalls behind him. The black shape was an odd, elongated skull of an animal. When they got close enough, they could read the single word below the image. DILOPHOSAURUS Not knowing what else to do, Duo snapped another picture. He had his camera at the ready after taking several shots of the tall fence and the voltage signs. "What the fuck does that mean?" Heero wondered behind him. Duo rolled his eyes and shot a look over his shoulder. "Are you really so gay that you didn't go through a dino-phase when you were a kid? Dilophosaurus was a species of dinosaur." "Yeah, I extrapolated that much, from the '-saurus' part… It still doesn't mean shit." He couldn't argue with that, because he couldn't explain the meaning of the sign either. "Maybe they found fossils here, or something…" He mused uncertainly and then scrunched up his face. That didn't make much sense. InGen did fund a couple of paleontological research projects, including active dig sites, but why buy an entire island for something they were doing all over the world? Heero shushed him and in the silence they heard a whirring sound approach them. Heero pushed him off the road, into the shadows of the tree line and they scrambled into the shrubbery until they were hidden. They watched as two brightly colored Ford Explorers followed the track along the road. The sound of the engines soft and unusual as they were completely electric. They could make out six occupants, three in each car, but didn't see much before trees and bushes blocked their view entirely as the cars rolled on. "Were those kids in there?" Duo asked. Heero shrugged his shoulders, also unsure. It was too odd to be believable, although Duo could have sworn he saw a young boy and girl. Once they were confident the cars had passed and were too far for them to be spotted, they stepped back out onto the road. "I guess we're going that way." They started down the road, following the direction of the vehicles. To their right, beyond the fence, the hooting returned and it accompanied them the entire way. After a few miles the road took a sharp turn to the right, beyond which it was sandwiched by tall, electrical fencing on either side. The way was so narrow, it was only wide enough to fit vehicles and leave them barely enough space to be able to open the car doors. The 'alley' – as Duo found to be the most apt description – stretched out before them gently curving like a river meandering through the landscape. At the start of it, there was another yellow sign, to the left of the road, with a another skull and a different name. METRIACANTHOSAURUS Heero struggled to pronounce it as he read the name out loud. Duo didn't couldn't make the word roll off his tongue either, he had never heard it before. He had never had a toy reincarnation of this particular dinosaur in his pre-pubescent years. There was a risk another set of cars could come up behind them, or the two in front could come back, but they knew they had to stay on the road rather than aimlessly wander into the jungle again. They headed down the 'alley'. "I read this interview on John Hammond, the founder of InGen," Heero spoke as they walked side-by-side. "When he was a kid, he had this… flea circus, he said. It was the first business he owned. He charged people a buck to come see his 'fleas' perform." Duo frowned as he listened, wondering about the purpose of the seemingly random story. "Said he loved it. Said it was the most honest money he had ever made, even though it was all a lie. Because it was money he made making people happy." "Okay…" "Maybe this is like the flea circus, but more grandiose." "What do you mean?" "Look around. These aren't perimeter fences as a security measure, they are set up like enclosures. Like a zoo. With signs that say which animal is supposed to be in there. They have cars going through like it's a tour. He's selling another illusion that will make people happy. Like you said: what boy isn't a dino-geek at one point?" "You, apparently. Ya freak." Heero ignored the insult. "What if the construction workers are already so caught up in this illusion, that the stories they tell at home have old ladies hallucinating dinosaur-demons when they've probably just been attacked by a jungle cat, or a big lizard or something." "That's a lot or presumptions. Now who's the fiction-writer?" "I'm hypothesizing." "Oh, sure, when you do it, it's hypothesizing, but when I do it, it's bullshitting. How would the InGen geneticists figure into this 'hypothesis'?" "Alright. Maybe it's not a flea circus. Maybe they're incubating actual dinosaurs over here," he said flippantly. Duo forced a laugh, although he was unsettled by the farfetched supposition. They continued along their way and on either side new 'enclosures' were introduced by twin signs left and right. SUCHOMIMUS and HERRERASAURUS The road snaked between the enclosures and Heero and Duo were both on guard, listening for vehicles or other people. They came across more signs as they pushed on. Above them, the sky was darkening and they heard a haunting howling and whistling and they didn't know what it was until they rounded another curve in the road and found themselves standing at the mouth of a tunnel cutting through the mountain. The sound was caused by the wind traveling through the concrete tunnel, echoing along its walls. They both retrieved their flashlights from their backpacks and went in. Inside it was like a wind tunnel and certain gusts had them leaning their weight into it to prevent themselves from being pushed backwards by the invisible force of it. An abrupt, crashing thunder that echoed through made them pause. "Seems like the storm isn't 'drifting South' like the others did," Duo spoke, remembering the fisherman had warned them about the upcoming weather. The tunnel was over a mile long and Duo was close to feeling claustrophobic when the sight of light in the distance relieved him. Five more minutes of walking and they reached the other end of the tunnel. In the meantime clouds had rolled in. The sky was grey and the light of dusk was weak. There was a faint drizzle of rain. To their left there was another fence again, along the outer curve of the road. The fence was taller than they had seen before – easily thirty feet tall. It also consisted of only the thick, horizontal chords, not laced with the web of thinner wires like the previous fences they had observed. The yellow sign to the right of the road was bigger too than they had encountered before. TYRANNOSAURUS REX Duo definitely had that one as a toy when he was younger. He felt uncomfortable, frightened even, but he couldn't express that without coming across as an idiot. Dinosaurs are extinct, after all, and an imposing fence on a tropical island shouldn't be enough to have him considering otherwise. Heero certainly didn't appear impressed, although he was interested. He leaned against the concrete base of the fence, almost as tall as he was. Duo joined him. There was a chasm on the other side, but further to the right the ground rolled up to the same height as it was on their side of the fence. "I'm guess this is supposed to be like the big boss at the end of a level?" Duo chuckled. Of course Heero hadn't been a dino-geek, he was a gaming-geek growing up. "Yeah, this would be Bowser." A meek bleat drew their attention and with furrowed frowns they walked along the concrete base until they discovered a white goat tied to a post just beyond the fence. Heero let out a laugh at the idea that the goat was the creature the fence was built to contain. Duo grew increasingly uneasy. "Maybe it's food…" "You can't be serious." Duo shrugged. "Well, if there really was a dinosaur in here, the goat would have been eaten already. So you can stop worrying." Heero's mockery didn't make him feel much better. Duo turned around and scanned their surroundings. He spotted a grass hut down the road, marked as restrooms. He suggested for them to take shelter there, as the rain intensified. But Heero refused to spend the night in the restrooms and left no room for argument. They walked on. It was starting to pour and thunder clapped again. Duo was about to berate his partner for being too proud to sleep in a couple of restrooms which had probably never been used before anyway. But right before he could open his mouth they reached a small clearing with a brick maintenance shed at the center and Heero looked insufferably victorious. Part of Duo hoped the door would be locked, but it wasn't. It was small and dark, but Heero found a light switch. They studied the supplies on the shelving, finding nothing of interest. Just tools and equipment and an empty loading dock to charge car batteries. They both froze when the lights suddenly died. Duo's flashlight was the first to be flicked on. He walked back to the door and uselessly tried the light switch a couple of times. "Weird." Heero used his flashlight to continue to look around. He opened a crate and was pleased to find blankets. He put his flashlight upright on a nearby table to illuminate the space and free his hands. He promptly started stripping out of his wet clothing. Duo shamelessly aimed a beam of light at him. "Uhm…-" He was shut-up by Heero tossing a blanket at him. He barely caught it against his chest. The Japanese man wrapped another blanket around himself when he was left in only his underwear. His clothes he hung off the shelves, so they could dry after being soaked in the rain. Duo followed his lead. They would never get dry otherwise and in spite of the warm climate, wet clothes could still drop their body temperature too low at night. The other blankets Heero bundled up on the floor and took a seat on top of them. Duo joined him on the makeshift bed. Without a thought they lay down close together to facilitate sharing body heat. Duo stared at Heero's shadowy face. His blue eyes were deep pools in which all light disappeared. "Is this a weird time to say I've missed you?" Duo mused. "Yes." He grinned and he felt warmer already when Heero grinned back at him. "Do you really think it's nothing more than a flea circus?" He asked, after Heero had already closed his eyes, intent on getting some sleep. The other shrugged. "Maybe more like 'Pirates of the Caribbean'." "Like with dinosaur-animatronics and stuff?" "Yeah, something like that." Heero cracked his eyes open again. "So this Hammond guy buys an island and has miles' worth of electrical fencing built, just to plop a couple of robots into an exhibit and call it a Disney ride?" "He is not widely known as 'eccentric' without reason." Duo thought for a moment. That theory would be fine, if not for the other information they had. "And he has mercenaries kill people on the mainland to keep it a secret until the grand opening? And he has his best scientists flown in to rehearse a theater-bit for the visitors?" Heero didn't bat an eye, making Duo realize those same questions had been on his mind too. "Doesn't make sense," they said in unison and then they both grinned again. A while later – Duo didn't know how long – he had been close to falling asleep, in spite of the rumbling lightning, the rain clattering on the metal sheet roof and the hard floor they lay on. Duo had slept in more uncomfortable conditions. But as he drifted off a new sound cut through the jungle. A hollow roar with a completely alien pitch. He shot upright, startling Heero who had already been asleep. "Wha-?" Another roar, more drawn-out, interrupted Heero. There was an unfathomable weight to the sound. "More thunder?" Heero weakly supposed. Duo shot him a skeptical look. "That is not thunder." They listened intently and caught the bellows a few more times. It was an animal, Duo was convinced of it, just unlike any animal he had ever heard before. He was reminded, involuntarily, of the elderly woman, squirming in her hospital bed, muttering about a demon – some unknown creature. The night went quiet eventually and Heero urged him to get some rest.
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